Contactless Pay is the “Wave” of the Future
Welcome to the future - contactless payment processing, i.e. Visa’s payWave, MasterCard’s Paypass and American Express’ Express Pay. This has been in the works for a while and is slowly creeping into the retail scene, starting with the big chain merchants.
Essentially, consumers have a card that is enabled for compatibility with a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) card reader. One wave of the card in front of the machine, similar to a barcode reader, and the consumer is on their way. It could certainly help during the holiday rush by cutting down shopping lines, for one.
RetailWire is now encouraging more merchants to adopt the new technology. RW’s article downplays any associated costs as minor and hypes the impact contactless pay can have on speed of service, sales volume and customer loyalty.
As more B2B media outlets promote this line of thinking, look for contactless payment processing to catch on in a major way. You will probably already own an RFID-enabled credit card before this occurs, however. Credit card companies are now in the midst of a major push to spread RFID love to all, whether by issuing renewal, replacement or brand new cards.
