During the coronavirus pandemic, contactless pay-enabled credit and debit cards have become a handy and sometimes necessary tool to have. Do you know if you have one in your wallet?
The use of contactless pay has become more popular as people try to limit touching objects as much as possible. In April, Publix rolled out this form of payment to all stores, including GreenWise Market locations, as another measure to protect the health and well-being of customers and associates.
Whether through a card or an app on your mobile device, contactless payment uses radio frequency identification (RFID) or near field communication (NFC) to make wireless payments, removing the need to insert a card into a terminal.
But a recent survey by CompareCards found that nearly half of consumers couldn’t identify the contactless symbol, which is made up of four curved lines, indicating the card can be waved over or tapped on a terminal to record a sale instead of swiping or inserting the card. The survey also confirmed 1 in 3 consumers were using contactless payment more often because of the pandemic.
According to the survey, 39% of consumers now say contactless payment is their preferred means of making a purchase while 41% prefer using their card the old-fashioned way and 20% have no preference. CompareCards predicts contactless payment use would be much higher if more people recognized the symbol on their card.
Both your card and the checkout terminal need to have the wave-like symbol. If you don’t have a contactless payment card, you can turn your smartphone into one by downloading Apple Pay, Google Pay or Samsung Pay and following the steps to add your card.
