European consumers are increasing adoption of contactless payment technology, according to various media reports. Now Visa Europe is announcing contactless payments have reached critical mass, which signals the technology likely will become a mainstream payment option in the very near future.
Europeans will make some 52 million contactless transactions per month by the end of this year, according to Visa Europe. As it stands today, there are some 58 million contactless cards in circulation. The 46 percent surge in contactless transaction volume between December 2012 and March 2013, however, is not evenly spread across the continent with consumers in the U.K., Poland, and Spain leading consumer use.
Describing the sudden rise of contactless use, Jemma Smith, head of communications and education at the Payments Council said:
“Everything is in place for contactless payments to take really take off. Customers have cards, lots of businesses have the technology and all our research suggests that customers are going to want to use it: over the past ten years, since the launch of chip and PIN, customers have become increasingly used to relying on their debit card in all kinds of situations, so making it an option for low value transactions as an alternative to cash is the final part of the jigsaw.”
With reports that 1.5 million Visa contactless transactions have been made on London buses since December and retail giant Marks & Spencer’s processing over 230,000 contactless transactions every week, it would appear that indeed contactless payments have reached the tipping point will continue at exceedingly faster pace to replace cash and other payment options for small-ticket transactions across Europe.
Click here to read more from The Telegraph.