Visa applauds the move to temporarily raising the contactless payments limit in New Zealand

04/08/2020

By Marty Kerr, Country Manager New Zealand and South Pacific, Visa

People, businesses, communities and governments in New Zealand and worldwide are adjusting to the dramatic changes to everyday life caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

At Visa, one initiative we have supported is to increase contactless payments PIN limits. We know people want to make contactless payments, and increasing the contactless limit enables them to do so without having to enter their PIN as frequently.

Over the past two weeks, the New Zealand payments industry, led by Payments NZ, has worked together temporarily to raise the contactless payments limit to $200.

We applaud the swift action taken by Payments NZ in coordinating the industry to make these changes and we commend financial institutions and merchants for the efforts they have made to implement the required technical changes.

New Zealanders can rest assured that contactless payments experience among the lowest fraud rates of any type of payment and that fraud at the physical point of sale has remained at historically low levels in countries where contactless payments have been widely adopted.

Visa has also been working with financial institutions, merchants, governments and industry bodies in many other countries around the world to increase contactless payments PIN limits, allowing consumers to simply tap to pay with a card, phone or wearable – no PIN required.

We stand ready to support this change, with retailers and our partners in financial services everywhere Visa is accepted, and to work with these partners to determine next steps following this temporary measure.

 

About Visa Inc.

Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) is the world’s leader in digital payments. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, reliable and secure payment network - enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. Our advanced global processing network, VisaNet, provides secure and reliable payments around the world, and is capable of handling more than 65,000 transaction messages a second. The company’s relentless focus on innovation is a catalyst for the rapid growth of connected commerce on any device, and a driving force behind the dream of a cashless future for everyone, everywhere. As the world moves from analog to digital, Visa is applying our brand, products, people, network and scale to reshape the future of commerce. For more information, visit About Visa, https://usa.visa.com/visa-everywhere/blog.html and @VisaNews.