The world is slowly embracing the EMV (Europay, Mastercard, Visa) and Juniper Research has released a new report saying that 249mn cards will be used for contactless payments next year.
The report, Contactless Payment Cards: Market Prospects 2013-2018, says that the growth in usage will primarily be driven by early adopter markets such as Australia, Canada, Poland and the UK. After which user growth will be heightened by significant use in the US following the mandated transition from magnetic-stripe cards.
Growth in the UK had been sustained by ticketing and retail usage, says the report.With more than 3.5 million London bus journeys paid for through contactless payment cards since November 2012.
It also highlighted the strong retailer proposition offered by contactless reduced cash handling and increased customer retention allied to an opportunity to use contactless as a mechanism for greater consumer engagement in the form of loyalty cards.
However, the report cautioned that despite recent deployments, contactless POS (Point Of Sale) terminals still accounted for a small minority of the total in nearly all markets, meaning that opportunities for usage were still severely constrained.
The report’s author, Dr Windsor Holdensaid: “‘We’re still at a comparatively early stage in the consumer contactless journey. Awareness of – and confidence in – the technology needs to increase substantially before we move to true mass adoption.”
