SBI launches contactless mobile payment facility for credit card holders

The SBI Card on Wednesday launched 'SBI Card Pay', a payment feature based on Host Card Emulation (HCE) technology for faster, convenient and more secure card payments using mobile phones. "SBI Card Pay is aimed at redefining the payments experience for our customers. Using cutting-edge technologies such as HCE. We want to provide seamless yet swift payments at a speed that matches dynamic lifestyle of today's consumers. We believe that contactless payments are playing a key role in country's digital payments drive and as the supporting infrastructure increases countrywide, adoption is bound to accelerate significantly," said Hardayal Prasad, MD & CEO, SBI Card.

Contactless payment in which you just have to tap your credit card or debit card has been on the rise due to the convenience it provides as payment is done just with a tap of your credit or debit card and you do not have to enter your PIN to make payment. However, now we are moving towards contactless payment through mobile, which is not done via any mobile app but through a tap of your mobile to make payment at PoS (Point of Sale) terminal of the merchants or other recipients.

As per the press release by the SBI Card, this contactless payment facility through mobile is built as part of the SBI Card mobile app providing ease to customers to use just one app to manage their credit card accounts. To use the SBI Card Pay, cardholders have to do a one-time registration of their card on the latest version of the SBI Card mobile app. Once the card is registered, users can complete payments simply by unlocking their phone screens and bringing the mobile devices near the point of sale terminal. This facility has been launched on Visa platform and will function on any Android smartphone with Android OS KitKat version 4.4 and above.

If you are an SBI card holder, you can make contactless payments at Near Field Communication (NFC)-enabled point of sale terminals with just one tap of your mobile without using the physical credit card or entering any PIN. However, the contactless mobile payment facility is currently being offered only on Visa cards. "We are proud to partner SBI Card in enabling Visa cards for tap to pay transactions using the SBI Card mobile app, a first of its kind in India," said T.R. Ramachandran, Group Country Manager India & South Asia, Visa.

To keep the transaction secure, the mobile app uses tokenisation that converts customer's sensitive card information (card number, expiry date, CVV) into a device-specific digital token. Since the card information transmitted wirelessly by NFC is protected through tokenisation, the customer's physical card information is never exposed to the merchant, making the transaction completely secure.

Additionally, customers must set a device lock on their phones to make payments. Payments will go through only when customers unlock their phone screens using fingerprint/screen lock or MPIN.

Currently, other HCE-enabled apps allow per transaction limit of up to Rs 2,000 and daily transaction limit of up to Rs 10,000, restricting the effective usage of this feature. However, SBI cardholders will be free to set their own sublimit as SBI Card Pay will allow customers to set desired per transaction and daily transaction limits.

In case of loss of mobile phone, card information stored in the form of digital tokens cannot be accessed by any third party, says the press release. So, your credit card cannot be misused even if you lose it unless your mobile phone is unlocked using the MPIN. In case you lose your mobile phone, you must inform the SBI Card customer service to block the digital token and you can continue using your physical plastic cards.

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