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There was a time when cash, cheques, or cards were the most preferred way of doing transactions. Even with the introduction of innovative payment gateways, businesses weren’t willing to part ways with traditional methods of payments. However, things have changed in the recent years, more so because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, both people and businesses are choosing to use contactless payment solutions. The convenience offered by such payment solutions and the fact that they don’t require any contact between the parties has made them highly popular. To know more about contactless payment meaning and the different options you can choose from as a business, read on.

What is the Meaning of Contactless Payment?

Contactless payment methods do not require any contact between the payer and payee. The two technologies that make contactless payment possible are known as radio frequency identification (RFID) and near-field communication (NFC). A person just needs to be close to a point-of-sale (POS) terminal with the contactless payment feature to make the payment.

Types of Contactless Payment Solutions

There are several different types of contactless digital payment solutions that you can use as a business owner. Some of the most popular ones are:

Contactless Cards

Contactless cards are one of the most popular types of contactless payment methods being used these days. Contactless cards look almost like regular credit and debit cards. The only difference is that they contain an antenna that facilitates contactless payment. These cards use RFID and NFC technology to make the transaction possible.

Also Read: 4 Ways to Prevent Credit Card Fraud at Your Business

Also known as tap-to-pay cards, contactless cards sure revolutionised payment methods. They are a secure, easy, and fast way of making payments. You can either hover the card over the card terminal or tap it once to use it. Often, the cards also include a magnetic strip that allows for payment by swiping. This can be done in case you don’t have a contactless POS available.

For your business to use contactless cards for payments, all you need is a contactless-enabled terminal. The terminal will read the information and complete the payment once the card is near.

Mobile Apps and Wallets

While contactless cards are an easy and speedy way of making payments, there is still the hassle of carrying them everywhere. Mobile apps and wallets have solved this problem. All your customers need to make contactless payments is carry their mobile phones everywhere, which they do anyway. Making payments through mobile phones has become incredibly popular in recent years. It’s easy, secure, hassle-free, and doesn’t anyone to touch anything.

To use this method, the customer needs to download any application they feel is best for making online payments and link it to their bank, debit cards, or credit cards. Most of the payments today are done by scanning the unique QR code through the app. Once scanned, the customer just needs to enter their secure pin, and voila, the payment will be done.

As a business owner, you only require a unique QR code and a contactless POS terminal to provide this method of payment to your customers.

Digital Payments

Also known as electronic payments, digital payment is an umbrella term for all payments that use a device to make payments. Whether your customers are making a payment on your website using their card or physically using their card to make a payment in your store, all constitute digital payments. But most digital payment methods have now become contactless. Using contactless cards and mobile wallets is an example of contactless digital payments. Another example is when your customers use it to make a payment on your website.

Also Read: How Digital Payments Can Ensure Online Business Success

With online shopping becoming a rage worldwide, digital payments have also become a necessity. Many websites offer several different options for digital payments, including credit cards, debit cards, UPI, or mobile wallets. To enable digital payments on your website too, you need to embrace a reliable and versatile payment gateway.

Benefits of Using Contactless Payment Solutions

Apart from requiring zero contact between payer and payee, contactless payments have several other benefits.

Fast Transactions

Contactless payments are much faster than other forms of payments with transactions taking mere seconds to finish. In this fast-paced world, where everyone wants to save time, contactless payments are exactly what we need.

Convenience

With options such as mobile apps and wallets, people do not even need to carry their cards with them. Contactless payments are not only hassle-free, but also make spur-of-the-moment shopping easy. All your customers need is their mobile phone and money in their bank account and they can go on a shopping spree in your offline or online store.

Also Read: Indian Marketplaces: Shift from Offline to Online

Security

Contactless payment methods take security seriously. With contactless cards, the antenna begins the payment only when in proximity to the POS. With other forms, it usually requires a unique code before the payment goes through. This makes the method highly secure and safe.

Also Read: 7 Tips for Safe Online Transactions

Factors to Consider While Choosing a Gateway for Contactless Payments

A payment gateway is crucial for your business. To ensure you choose only the best, consider the following factors-

Price

The price for a payment gateway depends on several factors, such as the number of monthly/annual payments, types of payments, etc. It is crucial to determine your requirements before choosing a contactless payment gateway. Some payment gateways charge a setup fee for new businesses. This fee is often fixed, but many options do not charge any fee.

Security and Safety

One of the most essential things for your business is to ensure your customers’ safety and security. Even if you are a small business, customers expect a highly secure payment gateway. Thus, while choosing a payment gateway, explore their safety and security protocols. Many payment gateways offer the option of customising the payment page, which might not even let the customer know they have been redirected to a third-party page. This makes the experience more secure and seamless.

Compatibility with Devices

Depending on your business model and the services you offer, the kind of visitors you will get will differ. So will the devices they use. Many contactless payment gateways have now upgraded themselves enough to work well with all devices, but it is essential to check for the same. Ideally, a payment gateway compatible with the maximum number of devices is the best. Be sure to check the platform yourself before selection.

Smooth Integration

Many customers usually abandon the shopping cart if they face problems while making payments. This is not something you want for your business. A payment gateway can only function well if it is integrated smoothly into your platform. The goal is to make the user experience as seamless as possible.

Customer Support

Excellent customer support is the key to excellent business operation. Choose a payment gateway that offers customer support 24*7 to avoid any unexpected problems. Consider it this way, if your payment gateway stops working or starts glitching during peak hours, you will lose significant time and money. Therefore, a payment gateway with round-the-clock support and several ways to reach them is essential.

In short, a contactless payment gateway has the potential to make or break your business. So, choose one that will cater to all your needs.

Why Use PayTabs?

Launched in 2015, PayTabs was started as an affordable payment gateway for small and medium-sized businesses. Today, it has grown into an award-winning payment processor. It offers multi-currency support and quick fund settlements. PayTabs is compatible with different payment options like MasterCard, Visa, OmanNet, etc. It also offers open APIs that allow you to integrate PayTabs into your website. PayTabs is PCI DSS certified too and has strong anti-fraud management to maintain secure services. It’s a win-win for you in every way.

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As a merchant or business owner in a modern, dynamic market, you need to enable flexible payment solutions to make sure that customer payments get accepted smoothly, irrespective of the method chosen. And PayTabs understands this perfectly well. Which is the reason why, they took a huge step towards meeting this objective by launching their very own transaction processing platform and globally validated unified payments solution called SwitchOn.

The payment solution has its own IP and is available for local deployment at an affordable price as well. It has been built based on deep use case expertise and empowers innovation in the region. Its architecture allows clients of different scales and from multiple industries to maximise the benefits while working in tandem with the legacy systems. Here are a few reasons why business owners like you are choosing SwitchOn payment solution over others.

Features and Benefits of PayTabs SwitchOn

· 3DS Solutions

With the help of SwitchOn’s 3DS Solutions, you can accept payments safely from customers or other merchants. It supports multiple payment methods including MasterCard, Visa, digital wallets, UPI cards, AMEX and more, so that you never miss a business opportunity. Your business can accept subscription or recurring payments from customers as well.

Also Read: The Most Popular Online Payment Methods

It is important to make sure that your digital payments are secure and safe from any kind of unauthorised activities. Luckily, SwitchOn payment method not only helps in enhancing the customer experience, but also provides fraud protection with the help of cardholder authentication.

· eCommerce Suite

Even if you are just foraying into the world of business and have no prior experience, SwitchOn makes your journey easy. This payment solution enables you to create your own online business in less than 2 months, complete with product images, descriptions, reviews, and more. It also helps you in creating self-service portals which are customisable and includes support for dispute management, batch or real-time settlement, and chargeback handling.

The eCommerce suite of SwitchOn will allow you to accept digital payments from the website or social payments from different social commerce platforms. The real-time merchant dashboard will also allow you to generate customer insights and analytics.

· QR Payments Solutions

One of the best ways of growing merchant sales is by enabling QR payments. SwitchOn payment method offers this capability by providing full omnichannel capability, both static and dynamic. It can be easily integrated into ATMs and POS for accepting value-added payments.

QR payments are a great way of increasing the customer base as it provides them with a very convenient way to pay for goods. SwitchOn understands that losing out on even one customer is not good for your business, and thus, includes support for Mastercard QR codes, Visa QR codes, and other QR programs. This payment solution also provides customisations for any national or domestic QR programs as well as close-loop QR programs.

Also Read: A Basic Guide to 6 Different Payment Solutions for Freelancers

· POS Management Solutions

A lot of people prefer cards as a payment method. SwitchOn’s POS Management Solutions will help business owners like you to accept card payments easily and more efficiently. Transactions can be monitored from the Business Manager Dashboard in the Terminal Management System. There’s POS Merchant Management available as well.

The POS management solutions will give you more control over fees, incentives, discount rates, restrictions and more. You can customise the portal as per your need and perform settlements in real-time or in batches.

· Switching and Authorisation

Paytabs SwitchOn payment solution has a plug-and-play mechanism that makes it easy to integrate into any business. It is beneficial for omnichannel business owners as well since it supports different popular payment schemes like Visa, Amex, RuPay, Mastercard, and more. The payment solution is highly scalable with real-time routing and switching.

You can accept payments in different currencies and from different time zones with the help of the SwitchOn payment solution. You can also benefit from financial transaction switching with reporting, transaction distillations, EMV-enabled payments, online audits, settlements, balancing, and switch reconciliation.

· Cards and Wallet Management

SwitchOn not only helps in managing different cards, but also has options for issuing their own virtual and physical cards as well. The plug-and-play system gets integrated quickly and supports credit, debit, and prepaid cards as well. The SwitchOn issuing solution issues payment cards easily and is a great step towards increasing customer experience and maintaining customer retention.

· ATM Management Solutions

The SwitchOn payment method provides ATM driving and monitoring for major ATM brands like Wincor & Diebold, NCR, Nautilus, GRG, and more, so that no customer gets left behind. This enables efficient cash management and forecasting as well as support for cash recycling. Transactions can be dispensed in multiple currencies and support dynamic currency conversion as well.

All in all, as a renowned fintech enabler in the MENA region, PayTabs aims to deploy a unique payment orchestration capability across the region. And its SwitchOn payment solution is doing just that, by enabling businesses like yours to boost growth and reach new heights while complying with the regulations of the local country.

Customer experience in 2022 has drastically changed from what it was just a decade ago. People are now buying their favourite products directly from the store, through their smartphones, from their laptops, and even with the help of voice assistants. Basically, there is more than one channel for selling products as well as accepting payments from the customer. Which brings us to the concept of omnichannel and multichannel transactions.

In the world of eCommerce, multichannel and omnichannel are two buzzwords that are used a lot, and often synonymously. While both these methods have the basic principle of using multiple channels to engage with customers, there is a key difference between them. They are both different strategies for marketing products and communicating with customers.

But before we dive into omnichannel vs multichannel, and debate on which one is better, it is important to understand what these are and what they represent at their core.

Multichannel Transactions

Simply put, multichannel transactions give your customers the ability to pay for something in different ways. For instance, a person can walk into the store, choose a pair of shoes and pay for it through their credit card at the counter. Alternatively, they can open the website of the store, order the same shoes and pay for them digitally. They can even hop onto an eCommerce marketplace to buy the same shoes and pay cash on delivery when the order arrives.

Omnichannel Transactions

One thing that is lacking in a multichannel transaction system is the integration among channels. And that is the problem that an omnichannel system solves. Consider the above example. Imagine that the user orders a pair of your shoes from an eCommerce marketplace. Upon receiving, they don’t like the fit or has some other issues with the shoes and wants to return them. In an omnichannel transaction setting, the customer can simply walk to their nearest store with the shoes, show the cashier the order invoice, and either return the shoes or get a replacement pair.

This seamless integration among different channels enhances the shopping experience of the customer and offers them easy buy, pay, and return options.

Omnichannel vs Multichannel Transactions

There are a few main differences to consider while choosing between omnichannel and multichannel systems. These differences revolve around the purpose and aim of these techniques.

● Customer Focused vs Channel Focused

A key difference between omnichannel and multichannel transactions is their primary focus. While omnichannel transactions aim at providing a seamless experience to customers, multichannel transactions aim at providing different methods for a customer to pay.

Multichannel transactions provide several options to every customer when it comes to paying for something. Be it online, credit card, debit card, cash, digital wallets, or something else. The focus is to retain the customer and ensure that they don’t abandon a deal due to lack of payment options.

Omnichannel, on the other hand, is more focused on customers and how they can engage better with your business. It enables customers to move from one channel to another without any kind of friction. The focus is on the customer and ensuring that there is no break in their experience. This way, if a customer buys something online but wants to return it in person, they won’t face any issues due to a change in the channel or the payment mode.

● Customer Experience vs Customer Engagement

One of the most fundamental differences between both omnichannel and multichannel is that, while an omnichannel transaction is done for improving customer experience, a multichannel transaction is done for increasing customer engagement.

Multichannel transactions try to reach out to as many potential leads as possible to try to convert them into customers. It employs the use of different payment modes, be it digital or traditional, to make sure that more and more people can do business.

On the other hand, omnichannel transaction delivers a consistent experience to customers who already know about the business and have engaged with it on previous occasions. This form of transaction won’t care about whether the customer bought the shoes from a store, website, or on a sale online. It will rather focus on providing a superior customer experience by capturing transaction details and past orders from different channels.

● Quality vs Quantity

While multiple channels are great for engagement, they can cause a problem when it comes to providing guidance and support. Which means, a customer who buys a product through a third-party eCommerce platform won’t find any support from the brand as it was not bought from their channel. The same can happen for unsuccessful payments, with payment being deducted but the order not getting placed, because the channels are not integrated with each other.

In an omnichannel transaction system, customer conversations and interactions are stored, so that they can be served properly and efficiently. No matter which channel or medium they use to buy a product, their information will be captured in the company’s CRM and will be available to support executives to be used as a reference.

Which is Better?

So, when it comes to omnichannel vs multichannel, both have pros and cons. Multichannel transactions may be more convenient for customers, as they can choose the channel that best suits their needs. Omnichannel transactions, on the other hand, provide a more seamless and integrated experience for customers.

Ultimately, the best approach for your business will depend on your products, services, and target market. If you’re selling products that are best purchased in-store, then a multichannel approach may be ideal. If you’re selling services or products that can be purchased online or through a mobile app, then an omnichannel approach may be the way to go.

Whatever method you choose, remember that having a robust payment solution is vital for your business. in this regard, PayTabs is one of the best omnichannel payment solutions available and will help you provide a seamless experience to your customers and sell your products or services across the world.