Hong Kong’s virtual bank ZA said that its users are now required to complete additional authentication when binding ZA Card to new digital wallets.

The new measure for contactless mobile payments seeks to offer a more secure spending experience and has been rolled out in response to the latest circular issued by the HKMA.

On top of the existing verification required for binding ZA Card to a new digital wallets such as Apple Pay, Google Pay and more, users will need to authenticate the first ZA Card transaction made on the digital wallet in the app within 3 hours to complete the authorisation. Upon successful authentication, users can use their digital wallet normally.

According to ZA Bank, its users roughly spend with ZA Card once in every two days, which it claims to be twice the local average for Visa cards.