India’s largest private sector lender ICICI Bank has launched a new service called ‘Tap n Pay’ which enables near field communications (NFC) payments for users using NFC enabled tag or mobile phone at the merchant’s point-of-sale device. ICICI Bank has roped in IT major Tech Mahindra for the contactless payments solution and currently the solution is being offered at large campuses of corporate offices. ICICI Bank and Tech Mahindra have plans to extend this service across the country.
‘Tap n Pay’ is a prepaid account which can be availed by customers of any bank by simply registering for it and transferring money online from any bank account. However, ICICI Bank has not specified the limits for the prepaid account but it is worth remembering that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has eased the norms for payments made using NFC-based or contactless cards and said that transactions below Rs 2,000 will not need a additional factor of authentication. We have reached out to the bank for details on the limits and we’ll update once we hear from them.
ICICI Bank also offers NFC-based debit and credit cards and has over 1,200 Electronic Data Capture (EDC) machines capable of accepting contactless payments. It also remains to see if there is going to be interoperability between the cards and the NFC tags for the payment service.
How it works
– Once an organization has enrolled for the service, its employee only needs to register online here with their details to avail the facility and collect the NFC tag from the kiosk set up for this purpose. The service can work with any bank savings account.
– In the registration page, the customer will enter basic details – Name, DOB, Mobile Number, Account Number, Employee ID and e-mail ID. Click on ‘Generate MPIN’ and enter Mobile number and DOB to generate OTP. On validating OTP, customers can generate your own 4-digit MPIN. Customers are required to remember this MPIN for tag issuance, transactions and login facility.
– Users can deposit Money through Net Banking by entering mobile number and amount. After this, they will be redirected to ICICI Bank Payment Gateway where you can enter your credentials and deposit money. ICICI Bank customers can also transfer money to the Tap-n-Pay account through an SMS.
– The minimum amount which can be deposited in Mobile Money is Rs 100 and users need to note that there is a tag issuance fee.
Others in NFC payments
– State Bank of India, the country’s largest bank, had also sought permission from RBI to introduce NFC enabled cards which will allow customers to carry out transactions of up to Rs 2000 without entering the ATM pin number at point-of-sale (PoS) terminals.
– iKaaz, a Bangalore-based mobile payments solution provider, founded by ex-Nokia Money team, has launched a Tap & Pay reader that works on Near Field Communication (NFC) technology to enable cashless transactions.
