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a hair and nail salon that is producing Zoom classes for support curbside pickups and deliveries – at no additional
patrons, offering fee-based tutorials on hair styling and charge through July 31.
do-it-yourself manicures. "We're just trying to help in any
way we can – to put them in the know," Bloomston said. "When CardFlight came to us with the idea for this relief
program, we were immediately on board," Bloomston said.
Making contact, less "Our teams worked together to implement it and were able

Although the coronavirus is keeping many consumers at to roll this out in less than a week to start helping small
home, most do have to go out, albeit less frequently, for business owners right away."
essentials. "Face-to-face transactions still need to happen,
even in times as unusual as now," said Sandeep Malhotra, Starai advised ISOs and merchant level salespeople
executive vice president, products and innovation for Asia (MLSs) to "think about leading with contactless. If you
Pacific at Mastercard. "Making them as fast and contactless have merchants with older terminals, it could be a good
as possible is one way to help people to be more socially time to upgrade them to contactless."
responsible, support local businesses and protect everyone
in the community when they need it the most." In addition, Allen noted there is a huge market opportunity
with fuel stations. All pay-at-the-pump terminals need
Both Mastercard and Visa are reiterating in messaging to be EMV compliant by October, or assume liability for
to merchants that signatures are no longer required for fraud tied to non-compliant pumps – the so-called liability
transactions secured by EMV. They also are amping up shift that other retailers experienced in 2015.
messaging around contactless payments. Both are also Staying engaged
taking some credit for European Banking Authority actions
to promote contactless payments, including its decision With all the uncertainties associated with coronavirus and
to raise transaction limits on contactless payments to 50 the economy, the best thing ISOs and their sales partners
euros (about $55). can do right now is stay in front of their merchants. "They
really need to stay engaged," said Starai. "They need to
Contactless payments have gained significant traction help clients adapt."
outside the United States in recent years. As of February,
half of card-present transactions routed through the "Merchants may not want to buy new systems now, but at
Mastercard network (excluding those in the United States) some point things are going to turn around," Allen said.
were contactless payments. Visa reported similar data. "You need to be at least talking to them now. We're spending
But that could change, as the major U.S. card issuers a lot of time finding ways we can help [acquirers, ISOs and
(American Express, Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, MLSs] with promotions." He added that the company has
Citi, Discover and Wells Fargo) have or are in the process been getting a good response to its fee waiver offer.
of issuing contactless cards to all customers.
Sound Payments also has been promoting a solution for
"Contactless makes a lot more sense now," Allen said. "I see gas stations that eliminates much of the money and most of
it accelerating." ISOs can help guide merchants, he added, the time needed to upgrade pay-at-the-pump terminals for
by offering solutions that integrate contactless and "create EMV compliance, including contactless. EMV Easy Pump
a safer environment from a health perspective." retrofits existing pumps and was developed specifically
for independent gas stations. "We're getting good traction
TSG's merchant survey suggests contactless adoption is with the solution," Allen noted.
picking up in the United States. Among the businesses it
surveyed that are still accepting payments on premise, 27 The company is also seeing more interest from ISOs
percent reported increases in contactless payments. looking to resell its cloud-based mobile POS solution,
particularly to small business clients. It's an important
Contactless payments can be made using mobile devices consideration, Allen noted, that "merchants want to allow
with apps like Apple Pay and Google Pay, or with cards customers to be able to do business and also practice social
embedded with EMV chips. Most U.S. consumers seem to distancing, and being able to do that without needing to
prefer using contactless cards. Starai estimated that only buy an entire new point of sale system."
about 3 to 5 percent of contactless payments are being
made with mobile devices in the United States now. With Starai pointed out it's also a good time to focus on payment
issuers now deploying hundreds of millions of EMV cards platforms with unified commerce capabilities, which
with contactless functionality, Starai expects "a huge allow for uninterrupted payment experiences across
uptake in usage" will occur. multiple channels. "If you have the right technology
platform with capabilities in unified commerce, you will
Acquirers, ISOs and their partners are pushing contactless be positioned to help merchants that need to change their
technologies. Payroc, for example, has partnered with business models," he said. "The ISO community should
CardFlight to offer CardFlight's SwipeSimple contactless become fluent in unified commerce. It offers a tremendous
apps and terminals to food and beverage merchants to opportunity."

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