News

Europe puts squeeze on cash with support for contactless payments

November 11, 2016

Contactless card payments are continuing their upward trend in Europe as merchant acceptance levels grow and consumers become increasingly familiar with the technology.

According to strategic research and consulting firm RBR, 1 in 5 card payments will be contactless by 2021, up from 1 in 20 in 2015

Europe continues to witness striking growth in contactless card issuance and use, according to the study, "Global Payment Cards Data and Forecasts to 2021."

At the end of 2015, there were 346 million contactless cards in the region, up 41 percent from the previous year. Use of these cards was greater still, with a threefold increase to 3.7 billion for the year, equal to 5 percent of all card payments.

At 63 percent, the rate of contactless card acceptance now exceeds the rate of issuance, the study found.

The number of contactless-enabled EFTPOS terminals in Europe rose 63 percent to 4.9 million during the last year, and contactless payments can now be made at 30 percent of all terminals.

Governments in countries as diverse as France and Belarus are promoting contactless as a means of reducing cash payments, RBR said.

Visa and MasterCard have mandated that all EFTPOS terminals in Europe must be contactless-enabled by 202, which will result in better geographic coverage and inclusion of additional merchant sectors, RBR said.

RBR forecasts that half of all European cards will be contactless by 2021 and that the volume of contactless payments will rise more than six-fold between 2015 and 2021, to almost 25 billion, comprising 22 percent of all payments on European cards.

"With contactless cardholding and acceptance continuing to spread rapidly, one-touch card payments will be second nature for the majority of Europeans by 2021," said RBR's Chris Herbert.