On Thursday, December 8th we discussed the ins and outs and various methods of using your phone like a contactless bank card when making purchases.
Chris ran through the basics, introducing the big company apps: Apple Pay, Google Pay (Google Wallet) and Samsung Pay: https://www.bankrate.com/finance/credit-cards/guide-to-mobile-wallet-how-to-make-payments-with-phone/ .
She pointed out the requirements: you would need a new-ish smartphone. An Android phone needs Lollipop 5.0+ and NFC technology (Near Field Communication – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-field_communication ), a Visa or Mastercard and you would need to download an App like Google Pay (now Google Wallet) https://www.bancosantander.es/en/particulares/banca-digital/pagos/google-pay or Samsung Pay (Samsung Wallet) for Samsung devices) https://www.bancosantander.es/en/particulares/banca-digital/pagos/samsung-pay…
An alternative is to use the app provided by your bank (e.g. CaixabankNow ) https://www.caixabank.es/particular/tarjetas/mobile-payment.html
In the case of Apple, “Apple Pay is already on your device. Apple Pay is built into iPhone, Apple Watch, Mac, and iPad. No separate app to download.” https://www.apple.com/apple-pay/…so if Apple Pay isn’t already on your iPhone tough ! You need to buy a newer one!
Security: Most pundits reckon paying with your phone is secure “it’s one of the most secure ways to pay. Phone payment apps use the same security technology as contactless credit cards (the kind you tap instead of swipe), and pay-with-phone transactions use tokenization to mask your actual credit card number during the transaction and protect your card information from being stolen.” – though there are detractors! https://www.mybanktracker.com/news/dumb-to-use-smartphones-for-payment
App installation and setup: Members had experienced some difficulties either installing or setting up the contactless payment apps. This seemed to be due to the presence on the phone of an app considered to be insecure by the payment app. Once this was disabled or uninstalled – all proceeded smoothly.
Using it: Chris had recently set up CaixabankNow on her phone to associate contactless payments with one of her credit cards. She had used this to make a charity donation to the JCC through the Computer Club’s card reader. She noted that her phone immediately notified her about the transaction, so it must have been in contact with her bank via the Internet. A Google search revealed that the smartphone does not have to be connected to the Internet to make the NFC transaction , however, most people with smartphones have data plans these days and stay connected to the Internet at all times.
Payment with your preferred card just involves making sure NFC is turned ON in your phone (In Android, check Settings via the cogwheel of the pull-down shade). Then unlock your phone and pass it over the contactless Point of Sale (POS) and “ping” it’s done. If you’ve taken too long since unlocking your phone you may have to authenticate with fingerprint, facial recognition, pattern or PIN. It’s a little more complicated if you want to pay with a card different to your preferred one!
You can use a smartphone to pay wherever you see this symbol:
i.e. in millions of stores: https://pay.google.com/intl/es_es/about/where-to-use/
We discussed whether paying with a phone was more convenient than getting a credit card out of your wallet, and what to do if your phone was lost or stolen (Chris demonstrated Google’s Find My Phone)
We looked at the stats for mobile payment in Spain – Top of the list was Bizum -which we hadn’t looked at in this session: https://www.statista.com/forecasts/1001382/mobile-payments-by-brand-in-spain
Perhaps we’ll look at that in a future session!
Members still seemed rather skeptical about paying with their phones – and we surmised “perhaps it’s a generational thing!”
Chris Betterton-Jones – Knowledge Junkie