ICICI Bank announced the launch of the country's first contactless debit and credit cards, enabling its customers to make electronic payments by just waving the cards near the merchant terminal in lieu of dipping or swiping them.
These cards are based on the Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, which provides customers the improved convenience of speed as these cards require significantly less time than traditional cards to complete a transaction along with enhanced security as they remain in control of the customer.
The bank's coral contactless credit card and Expressions wave debit card are powered by MasterCard contactless and Visa payWave technologies, respectively.
The bank has introduced these cards in Gurgaon, Hyderabad and Mumbai to begin with. Over 1200 EDC machines capable of accepting contactless payments have been set-up across merchants in these cities. The merchants include quick service restaurants, coffee shops, shopping marts and fuel stations where fast transactions are much required. The bank plans to shortly extend this facility to other cities as well.
Speaking at the launch, Rajiv Sabharwal, executive director, ICICI Bank said, "We have always leveraged technology to introduce digital innovations and bring forth world-class banking experience to our customers. Many of these were firsts in the industry like Internet, Mobile, Tab and Touch banking among others. We are delighted to partner with MasterCard and Visa to introduce the country’s first credit and debit card enabled with the contactless payment technology. We expect this to be a big game changer in the Indian payment industry. The key advantages of these cards are speed and security. The speed of transactions will add momentum to high value payments. At the same time, it will herald a shift from low value cash payments to cards thereby bringing payments in quick service restaurants and shopping marts too under the formal channel. Also, the level of security is higher since the card doesn’t leave the customer during the transaction process."
Shares of the company gained Rs 3.75, or 1.11%, to trade at Rs 342.45. The total volume of shares traded was 350,265 at the BSE (11.23 a.m., Thursday).
