Contactless payments remain one of the most popular and secure payment methods for Visa customers
Europeans made 1B additional contactless payments: Visa. Source: shutterstock.com
Visa announced that it has processed 1 billion additional contactless payments when consumers previously had to enter their PIN, as consumer confidence in contactless payments continues to grow.
This milestone was reached in less than a year, as contactless payment limits were increased in 29 European countries in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The rise of contactless payments has been a key trend during the pandemic as contactless payments have grown from a convenience to a necessity for both consumers and retailers. Visa research shows that 65% of consumers worldwide would prefer to use contactless payments as much or more than they do now.
The growing demand for contactless transactions in Europe is obvious. As a case in point, over 80% of Visa in-store payments are now contactless, while in France and Germany the number of contactless transactions increased by two-thirds and almost half, compared to last year. Meantime, 400 million of the one billion transactions were in the UK and further rise can be expected given the announcement that the UK contactless transaction limit will increase to ￡100 this year.
The e-commerce demand is also growing across Europe: in December 2020, over 15 countries saw a 40% increase in e-commerce transactions from a year earlier. As many businesses have to operate under constraints and keep pace with changing consumer behavior, merchants are increasingly moving to online transactions and using digital and contactless payments.
PaySpace Magazine anticipates that Visa is likely to keep this tendency as the coronacrisis showed major advantages of contactless payments. Besides, Visa has recently announced the expansion of Visa Direct, a real-time push payments platform, with the introduction of Visa Direct Payouts. That would allow Visa’s clients and partners to use a single point of connection to push payments to eligible cards for domestic payouts or international payments.
We’ve reported that Metro Bank business customers now can use new invoicing technology.
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