Contactless payments

Contactless payment options attract customers because of their efficiency and convenience, saving you time and helping drive up productivity. Each contactless transaction makes it easier for New Zealand SME owners to get paid faster and keep track of their business.
 

Contactless payment technology utilises the same Near Field Communication (NFC) technology as mobile wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay. 

Save time, grow sales, find insights
 

Visa's research in the UK showed that, on average, it takes 758 hours to process $200,000 in payments using non-digital methods, but just 103 hours using contactless payment systems. That’s a massive productivity gain. 

And 45% of small businesses saw an overall average increase in sales of 12% after they started accepting payments online or via a contactless card or device. In fact, 72%¹ of New Zealanders use contactless technology for their everyday purchases. And the number of contactless transactions increases each year as more consumers welcome the convenience of contactless payments.

Accepting digital or contactless payments can also help you:

• Better understand your business and allow you to spot customer trends. For example, you can get a record of all the contactless payments made into your bank account, how much they were for and what time and date they were made.
• Downloading a spreadsheet of your payments at the end of each month can help you spot patterns in your business. For example, are your customers making smaller, more frequent purchases at the weekend and larger, less frequent ones during the week? This kind of insight can help you make informed decisions about running your business and promoting your services.

Contactless productivity gains
 

As you can imagine, the time waiting for a customer to be invoiced, pay in either cash or remember their PIN, with the ‘do you want a receipt’ query, soon adds up. Going contactless has a number of benefits, such as:
 

• A reduction in transaction times leading to shorter queues and faster service.
• You can serve more customers in a given time frame.
• Higher customer satisfaction and repeat business.
• Lowers the risk of errors associated with cash transactions, faster bank reconciliations, and less temptation for theft and cash-related security concerns.
• Demonstrate adaptability to changing consumer preferences and contribute to the overall image of the business as customer-centric.
• Integrate with loyalty programs and digital wallets to offer personalised promotions, discounts, or loyalty points seamlessly, fostering customer engagement and repeat business.
• The transaction data helps gain insights into customer behaviour, preferences, and buying patterns.
   

While there may be initial costs associated with adopting contactless payment technology, businesses can save money over time by reducing the need for physical infrastructure related to cash handling, manual payment processing and improved operational productivity efficiency with labour savings.

Adding more ways to pay
 

Paying with a contactless card or device is more secure than paying with a magnetic-stripe credit or debit card². This is because contactless cards were specially designed to transmit data and feature robust built-in security elements that these older cards don't. 
 

New Zealand has the highest number of users enjoying contactless payment technology. Almost 75%³ of consumers say it's fast and convenient to use their mobile phone or compatible wearable device to make secure contactless payments. When they get to the checkout, they simply open their payment app or wave their mobile device over contactless terminals. So, don't get left behind. Ensure your business is equipped to accept contactless payments.
 

Buy Now Pay Later services are also growing in popularity with customers for in-store and online purchases. These services allow customers to buy what they want today and pay it back in interest-free instalments, so it's worth adding these options to your offering to add even more flexibility.

Get paid immediately
 

If you are a 'mobile' business or serve customers in their homes, accepting digital payments means that you can take payment on the spot. This way to pay is significant because:
 

• Most customers do not have a large amount of cash on them or have the correct change. Digital payment options make things easier.
• If you find you're spending time chasing invoices. Offering a mobile option can remove the need to invoice. In addition, with contactless card payment options, you can avoid bad debts and payment delays.
   

Merchants don't necessarily need a mobile payment terminal to benefit. Cloud-based accounting software lets you easily send contactless invoices once the job is done, and customers can pay for their purchase straight away. If they forget, reminders are sent automatically.
 

• ASB Accept offers a modern, simple, all-in-one solution with several enhanced features to make payments acceptance seamless wherever you do business. Choose from two terminal options to suit your business.

Take care with credit card transactions
 

Receiving credit card transactions increases the potential risk of fraudulent transactions, which you may be liable for. Therefore, before you accept online or contactless payments, ensure you have robust processes and practices in place. 

To reduce the chance this happens to your business, you should start to think about:
 

• Educating staff about common payment scams to avoid being a victim in the first place.
• Implement a risk review process for orders before shipping them out. If an order is deemed risky or out of the norm, you should look to complete due diligence on the cardholder or refund the transaction and contact the cardholder for an alternative payment method.
• Always refund a transaction to the original card - never refund cash, or send to an overseas bank account.
• Never accept payments greater than the value of the transaction. A common scam is for fraudsters to ask businesses to pay for third-party services such as shipping through a company of their choice..
• Utilise your gateway providers inbuilt fraud tools such as country code blocking, IP whitelisting and velocity checks.
• Ensure that you are requesting the Card Verification Value (CVV) as part of the payment process. This helps to ensure that the person making the transaction is a genuine cardholder.
• Ensure you are using 3D-Secure on all transactions. This is a tool that your gateway provider can set up for you to help authenticate the customer making the transaction. It also helps to shift chargeback liability to the cardholder rather than yourself.

Next steps
 

• Set up a secure process to reduce the need to invoice customers, such as accepting deposits or pre-payments.
• Check out ASB Accept, ASB’s all-in-one payment solution for accepting EFTPOS, Visa, Mastercard and UnionPay transactions
• Conduct a payment fraud audit to identify where in your business you're vulnerable and then take steps to reduce the chance of it happening.
• Whatever business you're in, ASB has a range of payment solutions to help you accept contactless payment in a quick, easy and convenient way.