In the wake of a growing debate about whether customers should tap or insert EMV chip-enabled cards at point-of-sale terminals, global payment services company Mastercard has indicated that it will leave the decision to consumers. It, however, said it will also be introducing tap on phone technology in Jamaica later this.

Supporting tap as the preferred option, top executives of the payment technology outfit during a media round table held as part of its ‘Mastercard Day’ activities at the AC Hotel by Marriot on Wednesday said that while they believe it allows for a much better customer experience, they are also in support of customer choice.

“At Mastercard, we believe in consumer choice so what we want is to guarantee that they have a contactless card and they are using it on the enabled terms but it is up to the consumer to determine if they will insert or tap. Of course, we incentivise tap because we believe it is a better consumer experience, but it’s up to them to decide,” said Mayra Vivacqua, cluster lead for Mastercard Caribbean.

Following a recent move by Visa — another global payment technology provider and Mastercard’s main competitor — issuing a mandate to its merchants across the region, urging them to move away from inserting cards at point-of-sale terminals and to fully adopt contactless or tap and go payments which it believes provides as safer and more reliable payment experience, Mastercard said it is not at the moment as keen on issuing a similar decision.

“We have not taken a position of mandating tap. What we want people to know is that it’s an evolutionary process as the banks replace old cards and add new ones. If one should think about the journey, there was a time when we had EMVs that did not tap or have chip and contactless capabilities. So in cases where we find merchants that are asking consumers whether to tap or insert, it could very well be that those terminals are a little more dated and have not yet been [configured] to accept later technologies,” added country manager for Mastercard Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, and Eastern Caribbean Dalton Fowles.

There are claims brought in news stories in the United States that some of these newer point-of-sale terminals have been sending out radio waves into a purse or pocket, charging consumers’ EMV credit and debit cards by mistake, but the Mastercard executives rejected the arguments as being highly impossible.

“We would love to see those test cases as for that to happen, the card has to be within a certain proximity for it to just go off,” Fowles said.

“That’s almost like a myth, for persons who truly understand how the technology works, they know that this cannot happen,” Vivacqua further stated.

Mastercard, in pointing to data showing a 41 per cent year-on year growth for contactless transactions across Latin America and the Caribbean region, which when further broken down reflects about 80 per cent of cards in the local market now being contactless, said this comes as a result of its increased push to educate and sensitise consumers.

Sharing data from a recent survey undertaken on the payment behaviours of little over 600 Jamaican consumers, the company found that there is a growing adoption of digital payment methods across the country.

According to the study, debit and credit cards were found to be among the preferred digital payment method for online purchases, estimated at 84 per cent.

“Fifty per cent of Jamaicans surveyed consider that using digital payment methods reduces the need to carry physical currency, while over 52 per cent are enticed by the swift processing of transactions. Additionally, 29 per cent find appeal in the global acceptance of digital payments for online purchases. Furthermore, 93 per cent of respondents consider security important or very important when choosing how to pay as another 71 per cent consistently opt for the most secure payment method available,” the findings detailed.

The payment technology company now far advanced on plans to rollout a number of other products and services pointed to ‘tap on phone’ as one to be piloted in the local market some time later this year. This, as it continues to create new products to further tap into the unbanked segment.

“As we continue to work with our banking partners, we are now on a journey to identify solutions that are appropriate to those segments and ‘tap on phone’ is one such tool that will help small businesses. We are making the technology available and our partners are currently working with the local banks through which it will be deployed. The institutions are also now in the process of working with the different segments, such as taxi cabs, through which it will be piloted,” Fowles said.

“We have conversations taking place right now, that has some other plans in the pipeline, which we except to also rollout if not by fourth quarter of this year, certainly by next year and that will see these solutions, not just in Jamaica but right across the region,” he added.