Tap. Pay. UK. - Android Pay in the UK

Scam · 31 May 2016 at 13:47

mrk said:
Found out today you don't even need to wake the phone with Barclays contactless. It wakes the screen to show the confirmation screen once the reader has made the transaction. Sweet!

Admittedly I don't know too much about NFC as I've only just started using it for AP, but doesn't that mean your NFC is constantly on? Thus ruining your battery life? I thought someone said Android turns on NFC only when the screen is awake, for this very reason. :confused:

mrk · 31 May 2016 at 14:02

Scam said:
Admittedly I don't know too much about NFC as I've only just started using it for AP, but doesn't that mean your NFC is constantly on? Thus ruining your battery life? I thought someone said Android turns on NFC only when the screen is awake, for this very reason.

Doesn't make any difference to battery in my experience so far being on or off. It's a near field system, so as long as the nfc setting is on, when you bring the phone up against an nfc reader, the system will go live. Otherwise it's like bluetooth, just sitting there available until something connects with it, at which point the communication becomes active.

Screen on or off doesn't matter in this case because of the passive nature of nfc. The screen will be turned on automatically after a transaction takes place.

NooBish AbbZ · 31 May 2016 at 16:18

I'm not even sure if my android phone has NFC...Vodafone Smart Ultra 6 if anyone knows

Regardless, it doesn't have a fingerprint scanner and for that sole reason I won't be using this. It's a nice idea though

Scam · 31 May 2016 at 16:47

mrk said:
Otherwise it's like bluetooth, just sitting there available until something connects with it, at which point the communication becomes active.

But BT absolutely rinses your battery :confused:

NooBish AbbZ said:
Regardless, it doesn't have a fingerprint scanner and for that sole reason I won't be using this. It's a nice idea though

Why not? The phone doesn't even need to be unlocked for it to work so where's the need for fingerprint scanner?

mrk · 31 May 2016 at 17:13

Scam said:
But BT absolutely rinses your battery

Why not? The phone doesn't even need to be unlocked for it to work so where's the need for fingerprint scanner?

Bluetooth does no such thing. If your phone is draining battery due to Bluetooth, then you have a connected device or application causing the fault.

AndyCr15 · 31 May 2016 at 17:19

mrk said:
Found out today you don't even need to wake the phone with Barclays contactless

Is this Barclays or Barclaycard? I didn't think Barclays had happened yet?

mrk · 31 May 2016 at 17:34

Barclaycard, although one and the same for my uses as it's all cleared at month's end anyway

Rexxar · 31 May 2016 at 17:36

AndyCr15 said:
Is this Barclays or Barclaycard? I didn't think Barclays had happened yet?

Likewise, thought this was some way off for Barclays and Natwest?

mark43 · 31 May 2016 at 17:46

mrk said:
Found out today you don't even need to wake the phone with Barclays contactless. It wakes the screen to show the confirmation screen once the reader has made the transaction. Sweet!

I think I'd rather have to wake the phone, just for security reasons and because it's zero effort. Though maybe I've listened too much to scare stories regarding contactless.

mrk · 31 May 2016 at 17:49

mark43 said:
I think I'd rather have to wake the phone, just for security reasons and because it's zero effort. Though maybe I've listened too much to scare stories regarding contactless.

Absolutely no different to your wallet being nicked. You can't turn off your wallet

unwashed potato! · 31 May 2016 at 18:24

mrk said:
Found out today you don't even need to wake the phone with Barclays contactless. It wakes the screen to show the confirmation screen once the reader has made the transaction. Sweet!

sweet. good job barclaycard doesn't constantly have a notification at the top telling the world the phone is contactless enabled. oh wait

mrk said:
Absolutely no different to your wallet being nicked. You can't turn off your wallet

which is exactly why you shouldn't bother with contactless card, but instead go to contactless mobile payments. they should be way more secure, but they're being made to be just as insecure for no good reason. turning on your phone screen to at least make a contactless payment is no hassle for anyone. I'd prefer to also have it require the phone to be unlocked for contactless tbh. now with finger print readers i unlock my phone to turn on the screen so no buttons to press. it's dead simple. can anyone give me a good reason to have contactless on mobiles active while the screen is off?

mrk · 31 May 2016 at 18:32

Not all phones have fingerprint sensors, but nearly all phones have NFC.

It's convenience. Banks are very quick to detect a fraudulent transaction these days and will instantly stop a transaction if it seems out of the ordinary. Besides, there is a limit the spending can go to, so either way you're not going to lose much money in the short term should your phone get stolen.Anything over £30 requires a pin and thus the phone to be unlocked anyway.

Lockscreen provisions such as Cerberus allow for the notification bar to be unusable until the phone is locked as well as the power button. So if you find your phone is stolen, just force it to reboot remotely and you can then start tracking it while knowing that NFC payments are unusable after a reboot until a valid fingerprint or unlock code is entered.

There is no flaw in this system, it is every bit as secure as it needs to be and any issues can be quickly resolved. Barclays have a direct link to their phone people for this anyway and from my experience are quick to answer and sort things out. As for the permanent notification, it is only visible when the phone is unlocked. You can then be all granular and hide even more notifications from Marshmallow's permissions screen if you want.

unwashed potato! · 31 May 2016 at 18:58

i have hid the notification, but what that does it every time the phone is restarted i don't get told to login to barclaycard, and any barclaycard faults i don't see either, so when i go to pay and say i'm not logged in, i'm not told that's the fault.

not all phones have fingerprint readers, but enough do to have it an option that you can say don't allow contactless payments until i've unlocked the phone. every phone has a lock screen ability, and every phone has at least a screen on button. there is simply no good reason to have screen off contactless payments enabled.

i'm aware and also have cerberus. i'm well aware of how tech works and feel secure as can be with my phone. i'm more annoyed as the masses wont be. they need convincing to try stuff like this, and knowing the phone can make payments while the screen is off and locked will worry them, and knowing the phone tells the world it has contactless payments enabled from the lock screen will worry them more. i've been fighting to get everyone i know to move towards the future with tech for years, and it's stupid mistakes like the ones they're making that reduce the uptake. as uptake is slow, progress is slow. i want nfc everything! i want to unlock my car, my front door, pay for things, all from a smart chip in my hand, but i can't get that until things like contactless mobile payments are at least the norm and we need the next natural step to happen.

i still have to keep my wallet on me as natwest don't have a contactless option yet. soon they will and when they do great i can massively reduce the need to take my wallet out with me. next step is keys to go. then the one after that is my phone.

mrk · 31 May 2016 at 19:02

Well all I can say is that if it was such an issue, then it would have been dealt with, when in fact Barclays system has been around for over a year and it works really quite well. Those that are using it, tend to know how to use it properly.

unwashed potato! · 31 May 2016 at 19:10

mrk said:
Well all I can say is that if it was such an issue, then it would have been dealt with, when in fact Barclays system has been around for over a year and it works really quite well. Those that are using it, tend to know how to use it properly.

barclays mobile payments has only been around 6 months ???

latest 4 reviews all mention the contactless notificiation issue.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.barclays.bca&hl=en_GB#details-reviews

read the rest. they aren't getting it right. there is no good reason for the notification. there is no good reason to have contactless payments enabled while the screen is off.

AndyCr15 · 31 May 2016 at 19:26

If payments can be taken with your phone screen off, why are you thinking someone needs to take your phone to take money? That's the insecurity. They could just tap a payment terminal against your pocket, surely?

unwashed potato! · 31 May 2016 at 20:02

AndyCr15 said:
If payments can be taken with your phone screen off, why are you thinking someone needs to take your phone to take money? That's the insecurity. They could just tap a payment terminal against your pocket, surely?

yep. they could in theory just swipe a terminal against your pocket and take payment up to £30.

from my previous understanding you needed to unlock the phone to make any payments, and then if it's over £30, once the over £30 amount has been requested, type another unlock code/fingerprint unlock it once again up to £100, but i'm now doubting that and perhaps if the phone is locked it goes up to £30, unlocked up to £100. so if someone gets an unlocked phone and keeps it unlocked by keeping the screen on they can make payments up to £100 a time.

wesimmo · 31 May 2016 at 20:06

My 6P doesn't do contactless with the screen locked on Android Pay as far as I am aware, I tried once and had to unlock the phone but have never tried again so might well test again in the canteen at work if there's not a queue.

Irrespective, phone payments are no less secure than a contactless card, so if you're up for contactless as a concept you may as well use the phone as well as a card.

I'd also be interested in testing whether you could even get a NFC signal through clothing on a standard terminal? It'd be sensible if they had thought about that and could limit the range of the NFC chip in a terminal anyway.

I don't think it's an issue at the moment, I work in Card Payments, not the equipment side of things, but I've not heard of it being an issue in any of the industry communications.

I also set one of my staff the task of understanding in detail the liability shift with contactless with regard to chargebacks just this morning as he forecasts the staffing for that department so I'll report back when he does.

I'm not particularly concerned from risk perspective that's for sure, if you're leaving your £400+ phone and wallet where someone could realistically do enough transactions to leave you seriously out of pocket without you knowing or fail to report the loss or theft of the phone or card in a wallet, I suspect you're going to have lost more through other means than a few £30 transactions.

Remember someone has to actually turn transactions into cash, it's not all that easy to fraudulently use a card machine that connects to Visa and MasterCard systems for any length of time, if we as the card payments provider or the Card Schemes themselves don't spot it fairly sharpish, someone's Risk and Compliance departments have screwed up big time.

It's starting to cost us a fortune to ensure we "know the retailer" and don't give out the ability to process transactions to anybody.

I'm not saying things don't slip through the net, but it's not like Joe Bloggs can easily go out, get a terminal and continue to siphon money off people left, right and centre for long.

mrk · 31 May 2016 at 20:10

AndyCr15 said:
If payments can be taken with your phone screen off, why are you thinking someone needs to take your phone to take money? That's the insecurity. They could just tap a payment terminal against your pocket, surely?

No it takes a few seconds to work as it has to be held in position (seems by design), it's not instant the moment contact is made. Again, this doesn't really seem like a big issue IMO. If you don't know that someone is standing there with an NFC terminal held onto your frontal body, then perhaps you deserve to have £30 taken from you?

AndyCr15 · 31 May 2016 at 20:29

mrk said:
No it takes a few seconds to work as it has to be held in position (seems by design), it's not instant the moment contact is made. Again, this doesn't really seem like a big issue IMO. If you don't know that someone is standing there with an NFC terminal held onto your frontal body, then perhaps you deserve to have £30 taken from you?

I'm guessing you've never really commuted on London Underground. There is no-way you would know...