Security Adds Hidden Costs To Contactless What does it cost to implement contactless payments?(Contactless cards)

Adding a chip and antenna inlay increases the cost of a payment card by about $1.50, says Sue Gordon-Lathrop, vice president of emerging consumer environments at Visa International.

As for enabling payment terminals to communicate with contactless cards via radio signals, that can be done by plugging in a radio frequency device or installing a module with RF capability into more modern terminals. The add-on reader costs $150 or less and integrating RF into a new terminal costs no more than $120, says Mohammad Khan, president and chief operating officer of U.S.-based Vivotech, a supplier of the radio frequency devices.

The two leading U.S. terminal providers, Hypercom and VeriFone, both offer terminals …