Even the skeptics have embraced it. Launched in 2012 in France, contactless payment has established itself in French businesses. Since the health crisis, the success of this functionality, which allows you to pay with a bank card without inserting it into the electronic payment terminal (TPE), has not been denied.
According to the latest figures from the Banque de France, “more than six out of ten proximity card payments are made in contactless mode”. In the first half of 2023, half of bank card transactions (including online) were made contactless according to the OSMP (the Observatory for the Security of Payment Methods).
Practical, hygienic, fast: the advantages of contactless are undeniable. But this system also has its limits… or rather a ceiling. In 2012, it was not available for amounts above 20 euros, for security reasons. This ceiling has since been raised twice, to 30 euros in 2017 then to 50 euros in 2020. And for a few days, it can even be exceeded thanks to “Contactless Plus”.
Pay contactless, but with your code
Deployed at the initiative of the Banking Card Group (GIE CB), which brings together the main French banks, “Sans Contact Plus” therefore allows you to pay sums greater than 50 euros without inserting your card… but by typing your secret code on the terminal. “In this new configuration, the confidential code is verified online, directly by the customer’s bank and in real time, in a secure manner,” explains the GIE CB.
In short, consumers will no longer need to insert and remove their card, but will still have to remember their four-digit code. No big revolution, therefore, but the possibility of paying by card in a “faster” way, according to the group. All customers already benefiting from contactless will be able to benefit from it in the long term, without any action: merchants just need to update their TPE. The Bank Card Group specifies that French people who refuse or do not have access to the contactless function will still be able to pay by inserting their card into the terminal.
Compete with ApplePay
A small step forward, will “Contactless Plus” manage to compete with payments by mobile transactions such as Apple Pay and Google Pay, which are in full development? “More and more French people are using a “virtual” card, available on their mobile phone in an electronic wallet,” declared Denis Beau, First Deputy Governor of the Banque de France, at the end of 2023.
And for good reason: today it is the only solution to pay by card, without taking it out and without entering your code, even over 50 euros.
According to the Banque de France, payments from a smartphone increased by 177% in 2021 and 137% in 2022, to represent 6% of physical card transactions. The problem is that this method requires an intermediary (Apple, Google, Samsung)… and therefore generates costs for the banks. From then on, we better understand the interest of “Sans Contact Plus”.
