France is in the process of finding a solution for the contactless payment limit. Rising to 50 euros since 2020 and the coronavirus pandemic, payment by bank card, without insertion into the terminal, has been widely adopted by the French, but it is still not possible to pay large sums.
To overcome this, French banks and online banks should be able to use the “PIN Online” technique. Democratized in Germany, this is materialized by a simple contactless payment followed by entering the PIN code on the terminal. The maneuver is no longer entirely without contact and is a little slower, but all the same.
With it, it will no longer be mandatory to insert your card into the reader so that your chip can be read. Enough to avoid taking the terminal in your hands and waiting for payment validation to withdraw the card. Payments over 50 euros will be able to use this “PIN Online” technique without the cards becoming exposed to malicious practices that extract money from us.
Contactless payment security
Abroad, several countries have greatly increased contactless payment amounts, as is the case in Canada. The ceiling is 250 Canadian dollars, or 180 euros. Maybe France should also choose to raise the ceiling even further, but many still see this as an open door for thieves.
At BNP Paribas, a card solution with biometric authentication solved the problem by delegating the PIN code security protocol to that of digital authentication.
But in an interview with Presse-citron, its manager, Jean-Marie Dragon, confided in explaining that the technology was only intended to simplify use and not act as a security solution.
“The argument about the risk of fraud with contactless transactions is not entirely relevant, because today we see that contactless payments are absolutely no more risky than traditional contact payments.
Originally, contactless payment had been the subject of many doubts. In practice, this is not proven at all. There is no general concern about paying contactless with the fear of having transactions debited without having made them”, he said.
La Banque Postale, Parisian taxis
In Paris, a first contactless payment experiment using the “PIN online” method has already taken place. It is the Banque Postale, in partnership with two French fintechs, which has provided G7 taxis with a solution so that customers can pay by “tap” on the reader even after 50 euros. The solution arrived on February 25.
"By choosing the FrenchSys FRv6 standard, the players involved have chosen innovation, scalability and coverage of new needs in terms of accepting means of payment in compliance with regulations", commented the director. General of FrenchSys, Cédric Sarazin.
