Contactless payments increased to 50 euros to reduce contact with pin machine

The risk of infection with coronavirus does not come only from people, but also through contact with infected surfaces — like credit card machines. 

In order to curb the risk of infection, the Dutch Payments Association has implemented a system change that now allows customers to pay up to 50 euros using contactless technology, reports RTL Nieuws.

How does the new system work?

Customers do not need to do anything to implement these changes, as they have occurred automatically in around 380,000 payment terminals. Some of them have already been updated in places like supermarkets, with more places to follow by the end of the week.

This is great news because given how many people are touching pin machines the odds for infection is quite high, both for the customer paying and the employee handling the machine.

There’s also been an increase in the cumulative limit. The cumulative limit refers to how many times you can pay contactless before a PIN is requested. It is now 100 euros, from the previous limit of 50 euros.

Once the crisis is over, the limit will go down again. A spokesperson from the Dutch Payments Association has confirmed that customers cannot manually bring down the sum.

Options for those who do not want a higher limit

The spokesperson has said that there are options for those who are not satisfied with these new measures. For example, they can deactivate contactless completely and have to enter their PIN every time. Why anyone would want to wish exposure is a different story altogether.

Pictured above: social distancing done right, except that they should be working from home

Alternatively, you can also set a daily limit to your debit card payments, or you can ask for a card from ABN AMRO which does not have contactless payment on it. Or better yet, you can just use contactless and avoid the risk of infection!

Follow DutchReview on Facebook for more information about coronavirus in the Netherlands.

Feature Image: energepic.com/Pexels

Vlad Moca-Grama
Vlad Moca-Grama
Vlad was born and raised in Brasov, Romania and came to the Hague to study. When he isn't spending time missing mountains or complaining about the lack of urban exploration locations in the Netherlands, you can find him writing at Dutch Review.

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