The American multinational payment card services corporation, Visa, has launched an innovative tap-to-pay with card feature in South Africa to enhance digital payments and financial security in the country.
The innovative tap-to-pay feature, called “Tap to Add Card”, will enables cardholders to seamlessly add Visa contactless cards to mobile wallets using Visa’s Chip Authenticate service.
Visa’s Tap to Add Card will eliminate the need for manual data entry. According to a statement issued by Visa, manual data entry is "a common source of errors and a vulnerability exploited by fraudsters seeking to compromise sensitive card information.”
South Africa is ready for big changes in digital payments. With most people using smartphones and more areas getting internet access, mobile wallets are becoming very popular. Since 2020, contactless payments have grown by 30% each year, partly because people wanted safer ways to pay during the pandemic.
Since the COVID 19 pandemic when people are afraid of making contact with one another, tap-to-pay system became solution to consumers worries and since then, people couldn’t stop adopting the solution because of it convenience factors. Young, tech-savvy people are also driving this trend.
This was when Visa had to introduced its own contactless payment system to compete with companies like Mastercard and meet the local need for fast and secure transactions. In a nutshell, this shift brought about cashless society to South Africa.
However, South Africa never stop pushing harder to becoming a more cashless society. The country’s cashless system is driven by factors like increased smartphone penetration, the rise of fintech companies and digital payment solutions, and changes in consumer behavior.
Clearly, Visa is another big fintech company accelerating cashless economy in South Africa. The launch of tap-to-add card aligns with South Africa’s accelerating shift toward cashless transactions and positions Visa as a key player in the region’s fintech evolution.
In addition to speeding up cashless economy in the South Africa, tap-to-add card will also accelerate the adoption of digital wallet in the country—Visa South Africa head Lineshree Moodley cited.
How “Tap-to-Add Card” Works
Like Samsung Pay, Apple Pay and Google Wallet, the Visa’s Tap-to-Add Card simplifies the process of integrating a Visa contactless card into digital wallets with a tap on cardholder’s mobile device.
The single tap on the cardholder’s mobile device will generate a unique, one-time code that will be validated by Visa’s Chip Authenticate service. Then, the code will be used to add the card to digital wallet automatically, seamlessly and securely.
Using the Visa’s Chip Authenticate (VCA) service to carry out the integration ensures that the card’s credentials are securely obtained. VCA also ensures that the integration is significantly faster and it’s more secure alternative to traditional methods/manual entry.
This Visa’s innovative approach towards the integration of the contactless card with digital wallet on mobile devices addresses a key security concerns in the digital payment landscape and increases consumer’s demand for convenient, and a secure payment options.
However, it’s important to note that your mobile phone must be Near Field Communication (NFC) technology enabled to be able to use the Tap-to-Add Card features. Once your smartphone has NFC technology, you can simply tap on your Visa contactless card against an NFC-enabled your phone, then the card details will instantly be transferred securely to your digital wallet.
The bottom line
Visa launched Tap-to-Add Card technology globally in September 2024. Since the inception, it has gained traction in several markets and has been adopted in several sectors especially in transportation sector, making public transportation payments more seamless and efficient.
Although, the tap-to-add card feature is designed to benefit all stakeholders in the payments ecosystem, but as more transit operators and commuters embrace cashless systems in South Africa, the Visa’s payment technology could become a standard for transport payments nationwide.
