By only hovering the card over the POS terminal customers can make contactless payments of up to 25 Bulgarian leva, without having to enter a PIN code or signing on the receipt.

UniCredit Bulbank now provides to its customers the possibility to make payments fast, easy and convenient. With the new Visa Classic, MasterCard Standard and V Pay debit and credit cards cardholders can make purchases via POS terminals without having to enter a PIN code or signing on the receipt for amounts up to BGN 25. For amounts exceeding BGN 25, customers will have to enter a PIN code in the same way as before.

Contactless payments are made in the following way: the cashier enters the amount on the POS terminal, the customer hovers the card over the indicated spot on the terminal, the terminal produces a sound and light signal, thus indicating that the purchase has successfully been made. Automatically a receipt is printed for the merchant and a duplicate receipt can be printed out at the request of the customer.

“The new contactless technology provides to customers additional convenience, quickness and flexibility. This is why we have called these cards universal banknotes, as they allow customers to pay any amounts in a way of their own preference. Global trends indicate that this new standard for making payments gains a growing popularity among consumers and merchants alike, due to its universal use and, of course, the value added. Undoubtedly, this is the future of card payments”, commented Mariana Velikova Chausheva, Head of Cards Department of UniCredit Bulbank.

Cardholders can avail themselves of the new option for making payments on more than 1.2 million POS terminals in Europe and more than 4,000 in Bulgaria. With the contactless cards payments in supermarkets, gas stations, pharmacies, fast food restaurants and other establishments are made within only a few seconds. Contactless payments will be possible in all locations marked with the logo of the new transaction service.

Contactless cards have an additional functionality allowing contactless payments to be made, while it is also possible to make payments in the same way as before – via a POS terminal with reading of the chip or the magnetic stripe and obligatory entering of PIN, via an ATM, as well as online. Cardholders are absolutely free to choose how to make the payment.

Currently in Europe there are more than 80 million contactless cards and more than 210 million contactless payments were made in the past year. Consumers are making contactless payments nearly 4 times more often than a year before, which indicates that the new payment service is spreading fast. The international card organizations are expecting this rate of development to continue in 2014. This certainly will have an impact on the contactless payments in Bulgaria, expecting the number of cards (currently around 60,000) to increase, accompanied by a fast expansion of the network of POS terminals accepting contactless payments.

Alongside contactless payments, UniCredit Bulbank also starts the issuing of a new product – Debit MasterCard Contactless, which will replace the existing Maestro and MasterCard Standard Debit products. Debit MasterCard Contactless combines the best features of the two products: entirely covering their functionalities, acquiring the transaction limits of MasterCard Standard Debit, while having the fees and commissions of Maestro and with no fee of BGN 0.20 for POS terminal payments. In addition, customers will get all that in combination with an attractive design and a contactless functionality.

More information for clients:

UniCredit Bulbank, Call Centre

Phone: 0700 1 84 84

More information for media:

UniCredit Bulbank, Identity & Communications Department

Viktoria Blajeva, Phone: + 359 2 9264 993, wjlj/ebwjepwbAvojdsfejuhspvq/ch

Ekaterina Ancheva, Phone: + 359 2 9264 963, flbufsjob/bodifwbAvojdsfejuhspvq/ch

Magdalena Ivanova, Phone: + 359 2 9232 528, nbhebmfob/jwbopwbAvojdsfejuhspvq/ch