Commonwealth Bank of Australia confirms plans for mass roll-out of contactless card readers
Australia’s Commonwealth Bank has confirmed plans for a roll-out of some 5000 contactless credit-card readers in the second half of this year.
Dominic White, the CBA’s general manager of merchant solutions, said the readers will support both MasterCard’s PayPass and Visa’s PayWave technologies.
With both technologies the customer is relieved of the chore of having to either swipe or insert their card into a card reader.
Instead, they just wave their card in close proximity to the card reader.
A radio frequency receiver in the reader picks up the card details from a signal broadcast by a tiny transmitter built into the card’s micro-chip.
The benefit is a faster transaction and greater convenience for both merchant and customer.
Ingenico will be supplying the readers, said White.
The roll-out marks a big-step forward for contactless card technology in Australia and has been facilitated by the CBA’s upgrade of many of its customers’ cards to chip-cards.
This means that although the contactless readers won’t use PIN security, the transactions will nonetheless have some measure of security protection.
Currently contactless card transactions in existing CBA PayPass readers are limited to $35. (Transactions over that amount will continue to need a signature or PIN)
But White said both MasterCard and Visa are discussing whether to increase that limit to $100.
He also said that, because the contactless cards meet the EMV standard, both merchants and consumers will be protected by the existing EMV liability exclusions on fraudulent transactions.
Asked whether the inter-operability of MasterCard’s PayPass and Visa’s PayWave technologies is a global first, White said he was uncertain.
“Ïts quite a different situation in the various global markets. In the US its predominantly MasterCard’s PayPass being used in contactless transactions, but with magnetic stripe rather than chip cards.
And in Asia, where Visa’s PayWave is common, it is mostly EMV cards, and supporting off-line transactions is a large part of their focus.”
“We’re probably most similar here to the situation in the UK, where both Visa and Mastercard have substantial numbers of contactless card holders.
But the EFTPOS landscape there is quite different to ours here so I’m not sure there is a direct parallel.”
>Certainly, contactless cards have become more and more popular in recent years.
Eddie Grobler, executive vice-president for MasterCard Worldwide Australia said earlier this year that a MasterCard commissioned survey had shown considerable consumer interest in the technology.
"There is consumer demand for a faster way to pay, and contactless payment technology such as MasterCard PayPass can cut down on queues by giving an alternative to cash for everyday small purchases," says Grobler.
"As of 4Q 2008 there are currently over 50 million MasterCard PayPass cards and devices in use at over 141,000 merchants worldwide.
This more than doubles the number of these contactless payment cards and devices in circulation around the world in the last year.
Lack of interoperability between the MasterCard and Visa contactless technologies has, nevertheless, been a major factor holding-up the faster spread of contactless card technology.
Indeed lack of interoperability was one of the reasons given by Woolworths to the ACCC when it recently sought approval for the contactless reader capabilities of its
new ePumps to be restricted to Woolies own Everyday Money Card.
A number of Australian banks, including the Commonwealth, opposed Woolies application, and the ACCC initially rejected the retailers’ request.
For more information go to:
www.commbank.com.au/personal/credit-cards/paypass.aspx
www.mastercard.com/au/personal/en/paypass/index.html
www.visa-asia.com/ap/au/cardholders/cardsservices/visa_paywave_benefits.shtml
www.ecommercereport.com.au/story69.php
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