A Security Test for Contactless Payments

How secure are contactless payments? This emergent technology, which uses embedded chips in credit, debit, and other smartcards to make secure payments, was put to the test after reports of scanning and charging errors which reportedly dealt a blow to consumer confidence in going adopting contactless payments.

Jasmine Gardner, writing for the London Evening Standard, tries her best to find evidence of the claims of being double charged, or having charges issued to the wrong card, though this has not stopped a growing number of retailers from offering contactless payment options. In her journey to lose as much money as possible through contactless payment misuse, Gardner fails horribly, though to her credit, not for a lack of trying. Through simulated carelessness such as trying to scan two cards at the same time, leaving her purse near the reader, or resting her wallet directly on the card reader at local retail stores with no effect, Gardner shows that there are many technological safeguards in place to protect consumers from making these mistakes turn costly.

So it appears that contactless payments are both secure, and are here to stay, but are the consumers going card crazy? According to the head of the UK Cards Association, Richard Koch, “There are 125 NFC transactions every minute, or about 70 million a year, meaning these cases [of mischarging] are really few and far between.” Koch also estimates that a mischarge occurs “once in every five million transactions,” which provides strong evidence that these cases are instances of human error. Financial leaders see contactless as the future, but all of this depends on consumer adoption, and that goes hand in hand with how reputable contactless payments are in the realm of safety.