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Catching up with Contactless Payments In an age when speed has become the new mantra, when those extra seconds of waiting can ruin the customer experience, fast payment systems have become the expected commodity. Financial institutions are playing an instrumental role in this age of digital transformation by providing businesses with fast, contactless payments.
Bank of Valletta is at the forefront of this technology and is migrating its international debit card and credit card product suite to contactless. Contactless cards are perfect for small purchases and provide advantages to businesses of all shapes and sizes, and their customers. The concept is very simple, customers just tap their contactless card over the EPOS machine and payment is carried out. The tap-and-go process takes only a few seconds, making it infinitely faster than chip cards, cash or cheques. It eliminates the need to swipe or insert the card, obtain the customer signature, check the signature against identity documents or entering PINs. It helps to relieve cash points and reduce queues and waiting times. Transactions are secure and there is a lower risk of card loss since the card is retained by the customer throughout the transaction. For transactions beyond the set limit (€20 for BOV Visa and BOV Cashlink Visa, and €25 for BOV Mastercard), customers can still tap their card but need to enter their PIN for security reasons. Nonetheless, businesses benefit from a faster transaction over the traditional insert or swipe modes. Customers have the peace of mind that transactions without PIN are minor, yet secure. Customers can keep track of their transactions through their BOV Internet Banking or BOV Mobile Application. Training merchants’ customer-facing staff about the use of contactless cards is crucial. It is pointless for a business to adopt these payment systems but then its staff members do not know how to use such cards. The process is very simple: · Transaction amount is entered and green button pressed · Cardholder taps card · Payment is effected (if amount transaction is within contactless limit, payment is confirmed by a bleep and chit is issued. If it is beyond this limit, cardholder keys in PIN.) Contactless payments provide an opportunity businesses cannot afford
FEBRUARY/MARCH 2019
Merchant Contactless Acceptance Guidelines
1. Ask if card is contactless 2. Enter transaction amount 3. Press GREEN button
4. Ask cardholder to tap card
5. Listen for a beep 6. Follow instructions on screen SIMPLE | SWIFT | SECURE
to ignore. With diminishing tolerance for waiting times and a more technologically intuitive customer base, tap-and-go payment systems will become the expected norm in Malta. With the BOV Contactless Cards, a business can enhance its customer journey, providing a frictionless and seamless buying experience. Bank of Valletta offers a myriad of fast and secure payment solutions such as wireless card payment terminals, cash-register integration to card payment terminal, online payments, mobile payments, direct debits, electronic credit transfers and e-commerce. cc
If you are a business owner and would like to find out more about tailored payment solutions, speak to your Relationship Manager, visit any BOV Branch or drop us an email at customercare@bov.com. Terms and Conditions apply. Bank of Valletta p.l.c. is a public limited company regulated by the MFSA and is licensed to carry out the business of banking in terms of the Banking Act (Cap. 371 of the Laws of Malta).
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