Ireland’s very first contactless transaction just took place at the staff canteen at Ulster Bank’s Dublin office, ushering in a new era of contactless payment in Ireland, according to siliconrepublic.com.
Soon shops all over Ireland will be accepting Visa’s contactless payment cards for purchases of €15 or less. The cards will also come with a specific spending limit to guard against theft and fraud. Once a user clocks up more than €60 in a given day, all transactions after that will require the user to enter a PIN number.
The recent deal marks Visa’s shift away from credit cards to debit cards, according to siliconrepublic.com.
“More than 77 percent of the value we now process is debit-card related and players like Ulster Bank are migrating their debit cards from Laser Maestro to Visa Debit,” said Marc O’Brien, head of Visa for Ireland and the UK.
Visa has plenty of reasons to invest in contactless. McDonald’s has found that every second saved at the register translates to €1 extra to its bottom line. Contactless payment has also played an integral part in rejuvenating the vending machine market.
O’Brien added that Visa is currently “hard at work” researching and developing NFC-enabled mobile payment.
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