The growing use of contactless and digital wallets by consumers in their physical and online purchases has profoundly changed the payments ecosystem in Portugal and worldwide and presented new challenges to businesses.
Faced with this paradigm shift, the Bank of Portugal (BdP), the organisation responsible for the Portuguese financial system, is getting down to work and creating a roadmap that aims to take payments in Portugal into the future by 2025, which it has called "National Strategy for Retail Payments 2025".
National Retail Payments Strategy 2025: what will change?
Built on the foundations laid by "National Strategy for Retail Payments - Horizon 2022" published in 2020, the new strategy aims to maintain,
"the aim of developing and modernising the Portuguese retail payments market"
through four fundamental pillars:
Proximity and Transparency
The need, among other things, to produce studies and information to reduce scams and fraud.
Innovation and Efficiency
Creation of technical and regulatory conditions that harmonise and facilitate payments, especially electronic and immediate payments, and the obligation for companies to make at least one electronic means of payment available to customers
Security and Usability
Monitoring of strong customer authentication requirements, encouraging alignment with European developments in digital identity, introduction of fraud and scam prevention mechanisms.
Resilience and Sustainability
Systematisation of the lessons learned from the innovation process in payments.
What, in practice, will payments change?
There will be many changes over the next two years, but the ones that will have the most immediate impact are:
- Promote tap-to-phone and similar payment solutions that allow retailers to receive payments from a smartphone Contactless, QR Code e NFC and quickly and easily.
- Promoting the adoption and use of the Digital Mobile Key (CMD) by national means of payment providers, such as REDUNIQ.
- Promote a legislative change to oblige companies to accept at least one electronic means of payment
This could be one of the most impactful changes, since a significant proportion of national retailers still rely solely and exclusively on cash means of payment.
The advantages of providing at least one electronic means of payment are clear from the REDUNIQ Insights data for 2022.
In the universe of businesses connected to the REDUNIQ payment system, the weight of contactless payments per TPA (automatic payment terminal) accounted for 56% of national business turnover at the end of last year, with 71% of transactions being carried out using this technology.
- Creation of a harmonised European standard for QR codes for immediate transfers at the point of sale to the customer, identifying the necessary adaptations at national level.
- Consumers will be able to make transfers by simply entering the mobile phone number of the person they are sending the money to, instead of the IBAN
Until now, bank customers who are members of the MB WAY system were able to take advantage of this option, but as of next year, all banks will be obliged to make this feature available free of charge.
- Provision of a feature whereby consumers can access the name of the beneficiary of the transfer when they enter the IBAN of the organisation to which they want to transfer money.
- Implementation of a beneficiary confirmation solution in the context of SICOI and mechanisms to control creditor entities in certain payment solutions, in order to prevent fraud and scams.
- Increase the number of immediate transfers.
- Widening and generalising the range of electronic payment solutions available to citizens and domestic and foreign companies.
- Implementation of Euro Digital.
REDUNIQ Soft anticipates changes and makes life easier for businesses
In the case of tap-to-phone solutions and the creation of a harmonised European standard of QR codes for immediate transfers at the point of sale to the customer, REDUNIQ has stepped forward and is offering Portuguese businesses not only the possibility of accepting the payment methods most used by consumers, but also of becoming more mobile and digital, a unique and innovative solution: the REDUNIQ QR code. REDUNIQ Soft.
In practice, REDUNIQ Soft is the first app on the market that transforms your smartphone or tablet into a mobile contactless TPA capable of simple, fast and secure acceptance, NFC payments, QR Code payments or Contactless payments.
Quickly and simply, after contracting this service with REDUNIQ and installing the REDUNIQ Soft app on your smartphone or tablet, turning it into a real Android POS system, your business is immediately ready to start receiving payments from your customers via contactless card or MB WAY, Google Pay, Apple Pay (QR Code, mobile phone number or NFC), immediately, regardless of your location.
In the field of security, which is extremely important for the credibility of your business, the REDUNIQ Soft App, like all REDUNIQ's other payment solutions, is protected by the PCI-DSS security certificate, which is the only Portuguese acquirer with PCI-DSS certificateThis guarantees businesses and clients that their personal data and money are always safe.
