About 250 million credit and debit cards are expected to be used for contactless payments in 2014, according to a new report from Juniper Research.
The latest ‘Contactless Payment Cards: Market Prospects 2013-2018’ report revealed that Australia, Canada, Poland and the UK would drive the growth in usage initially.
In the UK, ticketing on public transport such as London buses and retail usage have already helped to increase uptake, with over 3.5 millilon London bus journeys being paid via contactless payment cards since November 2012.
Juniper Research research director Windsor Holden said: "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."
The research also found that the main advantages of contactless are the faster throughput at checkout, reduced cash handling and increased customer retention. Faster checkout reduces the number of customers lost to long queues, and also increases the efficiency of the payment.
Despite recent deployments, contactless POS terminals still accounted for only a minor part of the overall share in the major markets.
