SBI Card launches contactless mobile phone payments facility

SBI Card on Wednesday announced the launch of 'SBI Card Pay', a feature which allows contactless payment using mobile phones at PoS terminals.

Using SBI Card Pay, customers can make contactless payments at Near Field Communication (NFC) enabled point of sale terminals with just one tap of their mobiles, without using the physical credit card or entering any PIN.

SBI Card Pay is a payment feature based on Host Card Emulation (HCE) technology for faster, convenient and more secure card payments using mobile phones, the company said in a release.

"As a first of its kind payment solution in India, it is built as part of the SBI Card mobile app providing ease to customers to use just one app to manage their credit card account as well as make contactless payments," it said.

SBI Card MD & CEO Hardayal Prasad said SBI Card Pay will allow customers to set desired per transaction and daily transaction limits.

Currently, other HCE enabled apps allow per transaction limit of up to Rs 2,000 and daily transaction limit of up to Rs 10,000, restricting the effective usage of this feature, he said.

To use SBI Card Pay, cardholders will have to do a one-time registration of their card on the latest version of SBI Card mobile app.

Once the card is registered, users can complete payments simply by unlocking their phone screen and bringing the mobile device near the point of sale terminal.

The facility has been launched on VISA platform and will function on any Android smartphone with Android OS KitKat version 4.4 and above.

SBI Card has a customer base of 90 lakh and a market share of 17 per cent.