Maihapa Ndjavera
Contributing to the Abolition of Payment by Cheque Bill in the National Assembly on Tuesday, Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) parliamentarian, Elma Dienda, shared her concerns on contactless technology as a regular payment method.
“Customers pay by tapping or hovering their bank card on the point-of-sale terminal/device when prompted. What is the justification for contactless technology,” she asked.
Many commercial banks have embraced the contactless technology, which they stated make payments faster, seamless and more secure. The technology, which was introduced in Namibia last year, means customers can simply tap their bank card on Point of Sale devices to pay for purchases, often with no PIN required.
Dienda further questioned: “How is it even possible for your card to be useful without a pin? If it is possessed without one’s knowledge, it can be used without one’s consent. Contactless transactions do not save a customer time. The entering of the card pin takes less than 10 seconds. So what time is being saved? Has there been a study made to assess consumer concerns over time spent on entering pins? What happens in cases where one taps a card by accident?”
The parliamentarian stressed that contactless payment has led to possibilities of technology misuse and has resulted in the theft of bank cards from unsuspecting parents and friends which in many cases have caused severe direct financial losses.
She, therefore, requested the contactless feature of a card to be an option rather than it being an inherent feature on all new bank cards. Dienda emphasised that the need for security PINs as a form of security against theft has worked well.
She added that there are no any specific laws or ethics for online banking and card technology regulation and because of this, clients happen to face serious ethical and privacy issues, particularly when they use online banking facilities. She cautioned clients to think twice about their privacy issues.
According to Dienda, there is a need to adequately regulate technology if it delves into a sphere where it can be easily misused and could result in financial losses for unsuspecting clients.
According to one bank client, Kondjeni Immanuel, who has suffered financial losses due to the technology, said it forces children to steal their parents’ ATM cards to make their own payments. Immanuel noted some parents do not get banking notifications, making fraud using the new technology a disturbing
reality.