The new method of authorization, that is contactless payments without value limits

In one of the February’s news we wrote that the National Bank of Poland granted VISA permission to increase the contactless payments amount limit from PLN 50 to PLN 100. Similar consent in the autumn of 2018 was also given to the MasterCard. The British went a step further.

The British bank NatWest announced the introduction of a test environment for payment cards that support contactless payments authorized by a fingerprint reader embedded in the card. This means that the payment card itself will have a fingerprint reader and a storage medium on which the biometric data of the holder will be stored. Applying your finger to the reader will replace typing in the PIN code and it seems that it meets the requirements set by the Directive 2015/2366 (PSD2 Directive) for the so-called strong authentication of client / user.

The entire R & D process was to take place under the watchful eye of the two largest card organizations in Europe, namely VISA and MasterCard. At the beginning, 200 bank customers will participate in the pilot program.

The bank advertises new cards as the largest technology leap in the payment card market in recent years. And is it really? In our opinion, the technology introduced by NatWest already exists in a very similar form and is called Google Pay / Apple Pay (delete as appropriate). Nevertheless, it is another important step in the process of accelerating, facilitating and increasing the security of card payments. After all, no outsiders will be able to sneak a peek at our PIN, and breaking the card’s security (if possible) will require significant, technological expenditures and knowledge.