NFC Payments – Are they safe?

The introduction of new mobile payment technologies, such as NFC, is supposed to make it easier and more convenient to use your phone as a source of payment. By registering your credit card information, you simply tap your phone and walk away. Sounds neat, but how safe is this practice?

NFC – which stands for Near Field Communication – is technology inside your phone that allows it to send/receive a short encrypted signal through an internal antenna – in this case with your payment information.

Research shows that it is a lot safer to use NFC than it is to swipe your credit card to make a payment. NFC encrypts the payment data making it a lot harder to steal any information from your phone.

When using NFC, the actual credit card number is not transferred. Instead, a one-time code is generated and is used for approvals by the financial institution every time a transaction is processed. This include the CVD/CVV code on your credit card – this code is changed for every transaction made using NFC.

As a result, if your payment information were to be breached, it would be of no value as the codes used for the payment transactions would be void. What if someone steals your phone? Hopefully you would have enabled password protection on your device so that, if enabled on your phone, you will have some time to try and remotely access your phone and wipe any credit card details.

Whether or not you use NFC, it is highly recommended that you always use a password to secure your phone at all times. The last thing you want is someone accessing your phone and stealing information from it.

If you have any questions about our company or services, please feel free to contact us via phone, email or through any of our social channels. We look forward to hearing from you!