Six German banks to issue contactless Visa cards
05 December, 2011
category: Contactless
Visa Europe has announced that six of Germany’s leading banks are launching Visa payWave contactless services in 2012.
BW Bank, comdirect, DKB, Landesbank Berlin, TARGOBANK and Volkswagen Bank have all confirmed their plans to roll out payWave technology by the middle of next year.
Contactless payments are based on EMV technology, where a card terminal at the point of sale reads the secure EMV chip on a credit or debit card with an NFC reader. Within a fraction of a second, the terminal processes the transaction and the payment is made, according to Visa.
“The retail industry in Germany has almost completed its switch to EMV technology,” said Ottmar Bloching, general manager for Germany for Visa Europe. “The implementation of contactless and NFC represent the next step in our journey towards the future of payments.”
There are more than 26 million contactless Visa cards across Europe, distributed by 54 different issuing banks, with over 175,000 contactless terminals. By the end of the year there will be 30 million contactless Visa cards in circulation across Europe, with 50 million expected by the end of 2012, according to Visa.