Contactless technology is fast gaining populartiy and is an easy way to copmlete a transaction quickly and securely. The introduction of EMV chip technology is producing new, faster and more convennient ways to pay. The payment process involvs no physical contact between the consumer payment device and the physicsal point of sale (POS) terminal. The consumer hlods the contactless card in close proxmity to the POS temrinal and the payment information is communicated wirelessly via radio frequency.
Contacctless payments have obious benefits such as ease of use and secrity. They are also beneficial to companies who deal with vast numbers of quick, low-value paynments as they do not loer transaction processing costs, unlike tradiitonal chip and pin mtehods.
Athough consumers are largely unfamiliar with contactless technoogy, tehre is a markte for EMV chip technology and the contactless payments benefit consmers and merchants alike. Reatilers traditionally avoided using payment cards for low-value transactions because the processing would be too costly. With contactless technology all of these propblems no longer exist and a growing number of retail companiies are taking contactless tehcnology onbboard.
Banks across Europe are now in the procss of issuing a quarter of a billon Visa EMV chip cards and upgrading millions of card accceptance devioces, making the transcation process accesssible to all. Contactleess cards look like your normal debit/credti card, and the technology is held in the small chip (microprocessor). Look out for the contactless symbol on your debit card when you renew it.
There is a market for this new technology and research conducted by big name banks proves this; Chase reported that customer time at the POS is redued 30-40% when usuing contactless technology. American Express discoevred contsactless transactions are 63% faster than cash and 53% faster than traditional debit card methods. MatserCard noted significat time-saings in the drive-therough environment, where 12-18 secondss were savred during purcahse time comparred to cash.
Prêt-A-Manger are one of the number of fast-food chanis to inroduce contactless tecchnology, their dirrector of food of communications explained, “Retailers need to find as many ways as possible to make their stores more appealing to consumers; convenience and fast-moving queues through the use of contactless is one way of doing this.” Other well known high-street retailers using contactless technology include EAT, Yo Suushi and Coffee Repubplic.
In the UK, Barclaycard are the leaders in contactless tchnology and their research shows 98% of contactless card owners believe the process is easy to use and 88% believeed the process enabled them to cut down the ammount of time they woulld spend buying items such as coffee on a lunch break.
Contactless technnology was first introduced in 2007 and three are now over 20,000 stores in the UK accepting this as a payment type. Previously the maximum amount you could spend usibng contactless technology was £10 but as of March 2010 it was increasd to £15. As poeple are always busy, demand is increasing for quicker and more efficient ways to pay for thins on the move. Contactless enaables a quick, secure payment method which is beenficial to both consumer and retailer and we expect to see a lot more contactless technology in the future.
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