Oberthur Technologies (OT), a leading French digital security company, recently was selected by Kuwait’s Boubyan Bank to offer its first contactless payment cards.
OT’s contactless payment system, which was started in 1997, is a non-cash payment transaction that does not require a physical connection between the consumer payment device and the physical point-of-sale (POS) terminal. With the backing of state-of-the-art technology, this contactless payment technology facilitates faster and extremely safe transactions in which the data transferred from the card and the POS is encrypted.
“OT is already leading the market in this domain, but certainly Boubyan’s launch of OT contactless card will encourage other banks in Kuwait and the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) region to adopt the contactless technology,” Muzaffar Khokhar, OT's business director of financial services institutions for Russia, Middle East and Africa, told Gulf News Journal. “Indeed, the implementation was very smooth, and the bank was the first to launch it successfully in Kuwait.”
As an innovative solutions provider and market leader in cards and payments, OT has introduced many of the latest technologies in the cards and payments domain. The company has a broad range of cutting-edge products and solutions, such as its MOTION CODE™ with a dynamic card verification value (CVV), which aims to reduce online fraud and protecting customers when they connect, authenticate and pay.
Khokhar said contactless technology is prevalent in many developing countries around the world, and banking sectors in some countries, such as Australia and Canada, rely almost completely on contactless payments. Among the GCC countries, the UAE is an early adopter of this technology, with most of the banks in the country having migrated to OT’s dual interface technology, especially in their credit card portfolios.
Compared with traditional payment transaction procedures, contactless technology provides a host of benefits to customers. Primarily, it provides convenience and ease of use, as transactions are processed by simply placing the card close to a terminal.
“As you don’t have to hand over the card to the processor, customers should not be worried about the card data being copied or stolen,” Khokhar said. “Therefore, it is more secure, with the card not leaving the customer’s hand. It also facilitates faster transactions, as contactless transaction processing at the POS is faster than for current contact chip transactions.”
Boubyan Bank launched the first contactless payment cards at the end of 2015 for Visa and MasterCard credit cards, and it is currently launching the same technology for its debit cards. With OT’s technology, the bank focuses on significantly enhancing the shopping experience for its customers, who can make payments simply by waving their card in front of a contactless terminal.
"We are extremely happy to have been selected by Boubyan Bank to provide the first contactless payment cards in Kuwait,” Khokhar said. “OT has worked very closely with Boubyan and shares its strategy of introducing state-of-the-art innovative solutions. We are confident that it will revolutionize the banking landscape in Kuwait."
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