Friday, 15 May 2015

Axis Bank to facilitate 'contactless' payments at 50,000 PoS terminals

After State Bank of India announced its nationwide rollout of contactless payment cards using Near Ffield Communication (NFC) technology, Axis Bank has said that it will start incorporating NFC technology in credit and debit cards and upgrade 50,000 point-of-sale terminals to enable acceptance of 'tap and pay' feature.

Reacting to the Reserve Bank of India's move relaxing two factor authentication norms for NFC based payments below Rs 2000, Jairam Sridharan, president - retail lending and payments, Axis Bank, said, "NFC-based tap-and-go payments have the potential to revolutionize small ticket transactions in the country and can help payment digitization. Axis Bank is committed to catalyzing this new ecosystem on both sides -- by enabling a large number of merchant terminals for NFC, as well as starting to issue NFC cards."

He added that over 60% of transactions on credit and debit cards are today below the threshold of Rs 2,000 and this is likely to increase with the new guidelines. Axis Bank, which is also one of the top 5 issuers of credit and debit cards in the country, will roll out NFC-enabled credit and debit cards immediately and help build NFC-based card acceptance in the country.

Internationally, 'tap and pay' cards have caught on in quick service restaurants, department stores, campus payments ad for cab charges as they facilitate faster check outs. Increase in acceptance of NFC-based payments is also expected to reduce cash withdrawals at ATMs.

All NFC-based cards will be issued on EMV platform and appropriate risk/fraud mitigation rules will be put in place to ensure security of transaction and hassle free customer experience. Customers will continue to have the option of using their card as a normal chip-based card and to transact in a 'contact' mode even on the contactless enabled terminals, Axis Bank said.

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