SBI offers Chennai Metro touch cards:
MUMBAI: The country' s largest lender State Bank of India is in talks with Chennai Metro to introduce contactless payment cards in combination with debit or credit cards. This will give commuters more functionality on their card and new customers for the bank.
Senior level sources said that the proposal was to have a payment card that will have dual functionality. At one level it will work like a regular debit or credit card and at the same time it will incorporate a chip to allow the card to be used to pay for the metro ride.
Unlike credit cards which need to be either swiped or dipped into a chip reader, contactless cards can complete a payment almost instantly and all public transport services are moving towards use of this technology also known as ' 'contactless cards' because they use radio frequency .
The proposal is still at a discussion stage. Officials said that the bank would need to refer to Reserve Bank of India as present guidelines require that card payments should have a second factor authentication for card present transactions. For most payments customers are required to enter a PIN and sign the charge slip for the completing the transactions. In case of public transport the objective of speedy payments would be defeated if RBI insists on additional authentication.
Bank officials said that SBI was talking to all metro operators. Although there is no revenue in enabling micro payments the bank expects that by 'carding' new customers who are likely to use their cards for other payments it would expand the market.
Worldwide metro operators are also working towards enabling near field communication technology to facilitate payments through mobile phones. NFC is considered to be more secure than RFID cards and works only in short ranges.
RBI is yet to take view on NFC as there are several competing payment services using mobile phones.
Senior level sources said that the proposal was to have a payment card that will have dual functionality. At one level it will work like a regular debit or credit card and at the same time it will incorporate a chip to allow the card to be used to pay for the metro ride.
Unlike credit cards which need to be either swiped or dipped into a chip reader, contactless cards can complete a payment almost instantly and all public transport services are moving towards use of this technology also known as ' 'contactless cards' because they use radio frequency .
The proposal is still at a discussion stage. Officials said that the bank would need to refer to Reserve Bank of India as present guidelines require that card payments should have a second factor authentication for card present transactions. For most payments customers are required to enter a PIN and sign the charge slip for the completing the transactions. In case of public transport the objective of speedy payments would be defeated if RBI insists on additional authentication.
Bank officials said that SBI was talking to all metro operators. Although there is no revenue in enabling micro payments the bank expects that by 'carding' new customers who are likely to use their cards for other payments it would expand the market.
Worldwide metro operators are also working towards enabling near field communication technology to facilitate payments through mobile phones. NFC is considered to be more secure than RFID cards and works only in short ranges.
RBI is yet to take view on NFC as there are several competing payment services using mobile phones.
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