The Good the Bad and the Ugly sides of Contactless Payment
A new wave has hit the market that some are glad about and others are not too happy, either pay contactless payment is here and ready to use. Fast food restaurants, petrol stations and retail stores now all accept contactless payment. But what good does this bring? Does it out weigh the bad? That is what we are going to find out.
Contactless payment was introduced back in 2007 in the UK, the people were slow to embrace it but now it is a house hold name and over 1,000,000 contactless cards have been issued since then. The UK alone spends over 3 million sterling pounds a month using this method and the average amount of spends at once is around £10.
So, starting off we are going to list the fantastic advantages that contactless payment brings to the table.
Advantages
- It’s Fast – These cards have been designed and put in place to save time and make life easier for consumers
- It’s Easier – It takes just seconds for a contactless card to send money when against the reader.
- It’s ‘Secure’ – People who use these cards now no longer must carry physical cash and it makes it much easier to track payments on your statement or banking app.
- Save Staff Time – Staff members now must perform less intervention when it comes to accepting payment from customers.
- Reduced cost of handling cash.
- Less chance of being target of fraud – This is more on the retail side, but customers then will pay by card reducing the chance of them giving you fake notes.
So, there are a few advantages, there could be more, but these are the ones we could find that actually made a noticeable impact. Some people swear by these cards but let’s have a look at some of the disadvantages.
Disadvantages
- Only a few places have really started to use wireless payment and not all business want to use wireless payment as they have not been trained or formally told about the new revelation.
- Now, banks are making this feature a default setting on the card and you have to specifically ask for your next card to leave the wireless tech out. This can frustrate people who do not want to be a part of the change.
- If you lose the card and someone picks it up they can make a sizeable dent in your bank if they use the contactless method even if there is a cap on the spend it can still be used to full capacity.
- You cannot change the limit or choose the limit per transaction as it is chosen by the bank.
So there are a few disadvantages that come with the wireless payment card. Overall we think it is a great idea and more people should try to embrace it. But that does not mean it is perfect. Transaction limits should be decided by the consumer and not the bank and all banks should not automatically award the cards and it should be made that you have to ask for a new card if you so wish to use the new system as it leaves the elderly and confused vulnerable to theft and scams. There is a story online where a man would follow an old lady onto the bus every day and site behind her using a wireless POS terminal to take money from the account every day causing her to lose out on a lot of money.