Visa Europe Users’ Transactions Increasingly Touchless

Contactless payment methods aren’t frequently seen in the United States outside of certain markets, but in Europe, they’re increasingly popular.

A new report from Visa Europe says that contactless payments are on the rise, with one out of every five card transactions processed now done on the tap-and-pay basis.

With three billion contactless payments processed throughout Europe in the last year—a number which is actually up three-fold against the previous year’s numbers—and the average value on the rise to about 13.83 Euro ($15.80 U.S) per purchase, there’s a lot of market at stake here for the payment processors, who need to understand these figures to make the most of the market.

That wasn’t all the Visa Europe report had to offer, though, as restaurants saw the greatest year-over-year growth at 153 percent.

General retail followed at 146 percent, supermarkets saw 119 percent growth, and—in the first category that didn’t double outright—food and drink, including fast food, at 96 percent.

The leaders of contactless use are Spain, Poland, and as seen in earlier reports, the United Kingdom, which has had a lot of new development in the contactless payment market.

Visa Europe executive director for product management, Tristan Kirchner, commented “This kind of success hasn’t happened overnight, and it’s down to the sterling efforts across many teams at Visa and the wider payment industry making today’s achievement possible while setting the stage for tomorrow’s technology, including new wearable devices and mobile payment services.”

A rising tide here seems to have lifted all boats, and very few consumer markets haven’t seen some benefit here.

While these numbers are mostly for the European market, and therefore of somewhat lesser impact outside of that culture and those social mores, there’s still a lot to consider here.

Contactless payments seem to be gaining a lot of ground, and businesses that aren’t considering putting in the infrastructure for such payments—particularly in Europe but in other countries as well—may be about to miss out on a major trend in the making.

Judging from the gains seen so far, that may mean a lot of money left on the table.

Contactless payments are increasingly popular, and those who take advantage of this popularity are likely to come out enriched on the other side.