Contactless payments
Discover the many benefits of digital payment technology.
Safer and smarter for your business – and your customers
Consumers' use of digital payment technologies is growing fast, undoubtedly accelerated by the pandemic. The rising trend of totally cashless business models in select industries is one result. Whatever your industry category or customer demographics, whether your model is brick and mortar, e-commerce – or both – today, no successful merchant can afford to be without multiple cashless payment options.
Why prioritize contactless cards?
Scalable options
Allow you to find the best solution for your business.
Evolving technology
To meet modern business demands.
More ways to pay
Means greater impact to your bottom line.
Exploring your options
Constant innovations in payment technologies is making omnichannel strategies a priority for businesses of all sizes.
Choosing which types of digitized payments are optimal for your business depends on many factors. At the point of sale, credit and debit card usage surpasses cash by a large margin at higher price points and remains the leading cashless payment options worldwide. But new card technology and near-universal smartphone penetration mean that you should consider contactless payment acceptance also. Contactless payments are exceedingly safe for both consumers and merchants. Whether via chip card or mobile wallet, each payment is assigned a one-time code that securely protects the payment information. Contactless payments comply with international EMV chip security standards and the most advanced and widely adopted cryptographic security.
Mobile wallets are essentially smartphone-based digital versions of traditional wallets that can reside on a smartphone, a tablet or even a smartwatch. The pace of consumer adoption is fast-increasing. While there are many variations, usually wallets can hold digital information about credit and debit cards for making payments, as well as store coupons and loyalty programs, specific personal identity information, and more. There are literally hundreds of mobile wallets in use around the world, but in the U.S. the most popular include Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay.
Merchants choose which wallets they wish to accept and sign up with the respective provider. Merchants may also choose to offer a "closed wallet," specific to their store, such as Amazon does. Customers simply download their app(s) of choice from app stores.
At the point of sale, near-field communication (NFC) technology enables the wallet device to make “tap and go” payments with the customer’s selected card (and coupon if available) on contactless-enabled terminals. Actually, no tapping is necessary. The device just has to hover a few inches from the terminal for a second or two to transfer the cardholder information and process the transaction. Mobile wallets work online in the same way as in-store. Customers just choose the wallet app, then select a card at the checkout screen.
Contactless cards are another "no touch" alternative to swiping or inserting a card into a terminal at the point of sale. Contactless cards are as secure financially as regular chip-enabled cards. As with mobile wallets, however, contactless-enabled terminals are required. Contactless cards can be identified by a mark on the card front near the EMV chip that looks like a Wi-Fi icon on its side. The mark signifies that the card is equipped with radio frequency identification (RFID) plus NFC technology to allow tap (or hover) and pay transactions.