Why contactless payments in France will soon be easier

An improvement in the technology behind contactless payments will soon make them easier to undertake in France and elsewhere.

Several major companies that make up the ‘NFC Forum’ – NFC or Near Field Communication is the name of the technology that allows for contactless payments – including Apple, Sony, and Google announced the change following a recent meeting. 

In practice, improvements to NFC technology will see the distance between the payment method or scannable object – a phone, bank card, metro transport card or even carte Vitale etc– and terminal or barrier increase from 0.5cm to 2cm. 

It will also provide greater stability for the network, seeing fewer failed payments, quicker processing, and ultimately less time spent paying with contactless technology. 

The increase also means the technology may become more widespread and used in devices that it is not yet powerful enough for. 

Changes should be verified this autumn, with the most important devices (those entirely NFC-centred) seeing the increased field at the end of 2025 and start of 2026. 

Other technologies will follow in 2026 and 2027, according to an outline by the NFC Forum. 

Read more: Are contactless payments coming to public transport in Paris?

Be mindful of scams and fraud

A common trick is for fraudsters to walk through a busy crowd with a payment terminal in their hand, set up to collect payments from contactless bank cards and phones. However the terminal would need to pass extremely closely to the card / phone for this to be successful.

To prevent automatic charges such as these, it is recommended to turn off automatic contactless payment on your phone (lock it behind an app or password that must be used before paying), and place a signal ‘blocker’ in your wallet or purse next to your bank card to prevent the technology. 

In the case of the latter, your bank card’s contactless technology will only work when it is not next to this blocker. 

You can limit contactless payment thresholds on your bank card, or prevent contactless payments altogether should you wish. 

You can also turn off ‘NFC’ technology on your smartphone, but this may affect a number of applications.