)
Axis Bank, country’s third largest private sector lender, has launched contactless debit, credit and multi-currency forex cards.
With the launch of these cards, banks are aiming to leverage Reserve Bank of India (RBI)’s guidelines, which allow them to process contactless transactions below Rs 2,000 without a personal identification number. Bankers say 60 per cent of transactions on cards currently are below the threshold limit of Rs 2,000.
The lender said they had already started a pilot project with select merchants to check the usage of these cards. By the end of the year the infrastructure is expected to be available at 50,000 merchants.
At the moment the bank has started offering credit card only to the premium segment and will soon be extending it to the other segments of customers as well.
