UBA Contactless Card Issuance Hits Three Million

The United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc has disclosed that it had issued over three million Near Field Communication (NFC) technology enabled contactless cards to its teeming customers.

The bank disclosed this in a statement yesterday, saying its introduction of the contactless payment cards which enable customers pay with ease by leveraging the NFC technology in 2015, revolutionised the payments landscape in Nigeria.

The NFC technology allows wireless communication between devices that are a few centimetres apart. The NFC payment Card uses microchips/antenna to transmit data via shortwave radio frequencies. Usually, when one NFC-enabled device is close enough to another NFC device, a connection can be established and data shared between them. The card communicates data to the reader to initiate and complete the transaction using NFC technology.

The bank stated that it developed the solution to ease transactions as well as to make life simpler for its customers in all parts of the world.

Furthermore, the bank stated that in addition to the contactless cards, it had issued over 10 million debit and prepaid cards, serving both customers and non-bank customers in its countries of operation.

Commenting on the feat, UBA’s Group Managing Director, Mr. Kennedy Uzoka, said the bank remains a leader in the e-banking innovation space, adding that UBA cards are protected with the best in class security tools.

He added: “We have driven other initiatives such as the acceptance of international cards on our PoS terminals and that UBA PoSs are now NFC enabled.

“Our PoS terminals are also enabled for Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC), which means customers and non-customers using foreign payment cards on our POS can see their transaction value in the currency of their card or home country; this aids transaction tracking and personal account reconciliation.”

On his part, UBA’s Group Head, Cards, Dr. Yinka Adedeji, said: “We are delighted to reaching this milestone. Our customers have found out that with our contactless cards, they make payments for everyday essentials and other things that money can buy the contactless way, and these cards can be used across all the channels where you use your regular card – ATM, POS and Web”.