Contactless payment card options have slowly increased over the past few years as both merchants and consumers in the U.S. and Canada begin to recognize the benefits and ease of the technology. MasterCard, Visa and American Express all support contactless cards, having issued 12.5 million PayPass, 5.7 million PayWave and more than 3 million ExpressPay cards respectively over the past year. Additionally, card associations work with more than 30,000 merchants across the United States that support contactless payments.

Contactless cards streamline the purchasing process for purchases under $25, improving the speed of micro transactions for merchants and providing consumers with a cash alternative. The combination of smart card technology and DCS’ instant issuance solutions helps financial institutions provide immediate access to contactless cards for new and existing customers. Typically interchange revenue comes from both PIN-based and signature-based purchases with the merchant; however, signature-based transactions have a slightly higher interchange rate. Contactless card transactions are signature-based, giving financial institutions access to increased interchange revenue from instantly issuing the card in branch, and getting it into consumers’ hands faster for use.

DCS’ contactless personalization solution will be installed and tested at an unnamed financial institution in both the FCP 20/20 and Datacard 150i in late February.