Increase to contactless limits requiring PIN.

All domestic contactless transactions at a terminal between $100 - $200 may no longer require a PIN to be entered into the terminal.

As part of an industry-wide change, we would like to advise you that any contactless payments made on our Visa Debit and Credit Cards (including Salary Packaging), will now have contactless limits with the need for a PIN, increased from $100 to $200. The change will start to occur overnight on Monday 6^th April, at selected merchants/stores, and a gradual roll out will continue over the coming weeks.

The change is being put in place by both Visa and MasterCard, following a request from the Reserve Bank of Australia. This is to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission by limiting customer contact with POS devices (EFTPOS terminals). Similar changes have already been implemented in several countries across Europe.

This is a temporary measure, initially to be put in place for 3 months and then will be reviewed.

We expect that the first POS devices to have their technology updated to reflect this change will be supermarkets, as we continue to see increased purchases occurring in these stores.

Exceptions:

EFTPOS:

All EFTPOS transactions in the industry are exceptions and will continue to prompt for a PIN for transactions above $100.  This includes transactions using multi-network debit cards at merchants who have enrolled into Least Cost Routing or Merchant Choice Routing, where transactions are routed via EFTPOS.

The Pays (Apple, Samsung and Google Pay)

Mobile transactions do not usually require a PIN due to the added authentication security on the device. However, some terminals, which are yet to be updated for the Pays will continue as today and request a PIN for transactions above $100.