Visa Europe says the adoption of NFC contactless payments has reached a ‘critical point’ across Europe. More than 19 million transactions took place in March 2013, driving the total spend on contactless cards and smartphones equipped with a Visa payWave app to over €1 billion (£856 million). The number of contactless transactions had increased by 46% between December 2012 and March 2013.
Anne Van Schrader, Head of Contactless and Mobile NFC at Visa Europe, said “We’ve been building the contactless ecosystem across Europe since 2007 so it’s fantastic to see consumers recognise its value. Markets like the UK, Poland and Spain are leading the way in contactless usage and we’ve been instrumental in delivering great success stories like the rollout of Visa contactless acceptance on Transport for London’s bus network. By the end of 2013, Europeans will be making over 52 million contactless transactions every month.”
There are now 58 million contactless cards in Europe and 39 Visa mobile contactless payment projects in operation.
Here in the UK, Visa Europe says there are 232,000 contactless payment terminals across the country. It also notes that the Post Office is installing contactless payment terminals in all its 11,500 branches. Around one in every four Visa cards in the UK are equipped for contactless payments.
We spoke to Pedro Sousa of Visa Europe about mobile payments at Mobile World Congress in February 2012. You can listen to the interview (which starts at 14:45) via the built-in audio player on our website or by downloading the MP3 file.
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