Last updated: 18 December 2019
You might already have seen from the news over the last 24 hours that one of France’s leading banks (and one of the largest in Europe), Crédit Agricole, has recently been rolling out contactless EMV banking cards to its customers in France, secured by optimized EMV risk management features from Gemalto.
This is an industry first, using the highly secure Optelio contactless EMV banking card certified by the Groupement d’Intérêt Economique – Carte Bancaire (GIE-CB).
While we have already worked with other banks to introduce secure contactless EMV payment technology to other forms of cards, such as student ID cards, what is particularly exciting about this project is that all of Crédit Agricole’s customers now have a whole world of contactless payments open to them, safe in the knowledge that their transactions will be secure. Simply waving or tapping your card in front of a contactless reader lets you make instant purchases of under €20, while transactions above that amount will require a PIN confirmation.
Additional protections on the card will reinforce security and complement the traditional EMV payment functionality to help Crédit Agricole maintain a high level of risk management, while offering a service that saves time for both merchants and cardholders and greatly reduces cash handling.
With research from MasterCard last autumn claiming that France has the lowest rate of contactless payment adoption – just 4% of French consumers having made a contactless payment – we hope that this development will encourage more of them to embrace the technology.
Innovations in payment solutions are driving better security and higher rates of adoption of new technologies and it’s great to be on board with another major organization to help bring the benefits to as many people as possible.
