Differences between NFC payment and Bizum payment

NFC payment comes from the acronym Near Field Communication. Which in its Spanish translation could be something like “pagar a través de un campo cercano de comunicación” (pay through a near field communication). This means that it is a technology that allows communication between two devices over a short distance. Normally 4 cm is wireless. That is to say, to make an NFC payment you only have to bring device 1, for example, your cell phone, close to device 2, which in this case would be a POS. And just by doing this you will be able to exchange data between both devices to proceed to a payment. There are two types of communication in this type of technology:

• – Bidirectional: where two NFC-enabled devices can read and write to each other.
• – Unidirectional: communication in which an NFC-enabled device reads and writes to an NFC chip. For example, if we swipe our card on the bus, money is immediately withdrawn from our balance.

In addition, it is a highly secure payment system, as it has biometric verification (fingerprint or facial recognition).

This form of payment is very simple. But before you start using NFC payment, there are three things to keep in mind:

• 1. Have a phone that incorporates the NFC chip.
• 2. To have a virtual wallet or Wallet.
• 3. That the merchant where you are going to make your purchases accepts this payment method.

To find out if your cell phone has the chip that enables NFC payment, just go to “Settings”, look under “Connected devices”, and if it is available, activate it. It’s as easy as that.

The answer is simple: No. Bizum does not use NFC payment to make commercial transactions. Why is that? Because this is a system that excludes those devices that do not have this technology incorporated.

QR payment is the technology used by Bizum to make face-to-face transactions at merchants. Thanks to this technology, the merchant can receive your Bizum payment without the need for any extra technology on your device beyond your banking app.

Payment by Bizum in merchants that have it enabled is very simple. For example, if you want to pay a bet in a Lottery Administration you only have to:

• 1. Log in to the Bizum section of your banking app.
• Select “Pay with Bizum” to generate a QR.
• 3. Show it to the lottery operator so he/she can scan it. And that’s it!

In the case of NFC payment it is also simple, but, as we said:

• 1. You need to have a device that allows you to make this type of payment.
• 2. Activate and configure the payment through a wallet type application.
• 3. Activate this payment method
• 4. Bring the cell phone close to the POS device.

Both options are secure and fast. But the extra benefit in the case of Bizum is that, in addition to being universal, it incorporates a double validation factor, the QR code, which confirms the transaction varies every 15 minutes, which is the estimated time for the validity of the operation and complies with the European directive PSD2, the security standard for eCommerce payments. And now that you have all the information in your hands, which of the two payment methods do you prefer to use?