Consumer confidence in and acceptance of contactless payments is outstripping card issuance and merchant acceptance points in Europe, according to research by RBR.
At the end of 2015, there were 346 million contactless cards in the region, up 41% from a year before. But growth in usage has been more impressive still, with the number of contactless card payments increasing three-fold to 3.7 billion during the year - equivalent to 5% of all card payments.
By 2021, RBR forecasts that half of all European cards will be contactless, boosting the volume of tap and go payments more than six-fold over the next five years to almost 25 billion - equivalent to 22% of all payments on European cards.
Says RBR’s Chris Herbert: “With contactless cardholding and acceptance continuing to spread rapidly, one-touch card payments will be second nature for the majority of Europeans by 2021”.