What is Bancontact?

Bancontact is a payment system. Bancontact originates in Belgian and is a market leader in electronic payments there.

As a payment scheme, it is responsible for checking, calculating, and processing electronic payments. These payments can be made via debit cards using its features (with or without a PIN code, both contactless and via the visible chip) or reading a QR code via the smartphone. Thus, one can make electronic payments in stores, stations, gas stations, or in the online shops. It can also be used to withdraw money from the machine or to pay for it in a mobile way.

The payment solution itself was first named as Mistercash and was launched by General Bank and Municipal Credit. It was later known as Bancontact after Generale Bank, BBL (Bank Brussels Lambert) and Kredietbank unification.

How does Bancontact work?

As Bancontact is a payment scheme, it’ll involve certain parties to function. The parties are a payment service provider and an acquiring bank. The payment system uses a specific infrastructure to maintain and process the transactions. There are three steps the system makes:

• Verify. A client types the PIN and the system verifies if the customer has enough funds to make a payment.
• Calculate. Then the issuing and acquiring bank exchange the client’s financial information.
• Process. If the customer has sufficient funds, it’s okay to process the payment.

What are the Bancontact benefits?

Bancontact is easy to use. It employs basic banking principles to accept and send transactions to the end beneficiary. As with credit card payment online both acquiring and issuing banks are involved. So, the payments with Bancontact are not too complicated.

Also, Bancontact uses certain rules during payment processing. This ensures the transaction flow is secure and fast. The first component is licensing. That means acquiring and issuing banks have to meet Bancontact terms and conditions. Another component is general rules. These rules include unity of fraud & risk management, quality & security assurance, and so on. The last part is the technical specifications to fulfill the processing services.

How to use Bancontact

Using Bancontact is easy for shoppers. Once they’ve added the goods/services into the cart and ready to checkout, they should pick Bancontact. As they click the button (or the branded button), they can use the Bancontact payment method. The customer can proceed with the Bancontact credit card, online application or the QR code.