Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has relaxed the mandatory two-factor card authentication for transactions up to Rs2,000 made through contact-less cards across all merchant categories that support contact less payments within India.

 

"To meet the objective of customer convenience with sufficient security for low value transactions, the card-issuing banks will offer the payment authentication solutions of the respective card networks to their customers on an optional basis," RBI said in a statement.

 

"The relaxation for additional factor of authentication under such solutions shall be applicable for card-not-present transactions for a maximum value of Rs2,000 per transaction across all merchant categories. Banks and card networks are free to facilitate their customers to set lower per transaction limits," it said. Only authorised card networks shall provide such payment authentication solutions with participation of card-issuing and -acquiring banks, it added. "Customer consent shall be taken while making this solution available to them," RBI said.

 

Card not present transactions are those where a card holder cannot present his or her card to the merchant for physical examination at the time of the payment. For these transactions and for transactions beyond Rs2,000 limit banks will continue to treat them as contact payments, wherein the additional authentication would still be mandatory.