Keeping payments clean

As the coronavirus pandemic continues, some folks are raising concerns about hygiene risks around payments. The European Banking Authority, for example, is urging payment services providers to make contactless payment options more widely available to European consumers, and to raise transaction limits to encourage more usage. Meanwhile, closer to home, the U.S. Payments Forum compiled and released Tips for a Cleaner Payment Experience.

“Payments are an essential touchpoint for everyone,” said Randy Vanderhoof, director of the U.S. Payments Forum. “This resource gives merchants and consumers practical steps to make payments as safe as possible in these day-to-day payment situations.”

Recommendations for merchants include the following:

• Clean checkouts and payment terminal areas frequently (or after each transaction, if possible), using clothes with cleaning agents. Never spray a cleaning product directly onto terminal.
• Use card cleaning devices on mag-stripe devices regularly.
• Provide sanitizing options for consumers to use in store.
• If you can accept chip cards, do not require signature authorization.
• If accepting contactless payments, consider raising transaction limits to encourage more tapping.

The forum has advice for consumers, too, including cleaning payment cards with soap, hand sanitizer or alcohol after each use, using their cards' contactless features and paying in advance for home delivery services. You can download a copy of Tips for a Cleaner Payment Experience at www.uspaymentsforum.org/tips-for-cleaner-payments/ .

Is cash ok?

There is no definitive information that COVID-19 can be spread through currency. But that hasn’t stopped some governments and merchants from taking extra precautions. Banks in China, where the virus outbreak began, have been under orders to disinfect cash before issuing it to the public in order to slow the spread of the virus, according to news reports.

And China’s central bank reportedly is destroying currency collected in some regions of that country that have been hard hit by the virus, and ordering banks in other regions to remove currency from circulation and replace it with new bills.

The news agency Reuters reported that at least some European merchants are refusing to handle cash, encouraging contactless payments instead. Here in the United States, several media outlets have run reports of local merchants refusing to accept cash, while several national food delivery services (including Grubhub and Door Dash) have stopped offering cash as a payment option.

An article published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in the MIT Technology Review, suggests such concerns might be misplaced. “Though it is theoretically possible, there is no evidence that physical money – or any inanimate surface for that matter – helps the virus spread,” the article stated.

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