This surge was seen less than a year after contactless limits increased. A response to the sharp rise in the number consumers demanding for a higher payment ceiling, amid the COVID-19 pandemic - With ease, convenience and safety playing a significant role in this increasingly digitally focused society.
With major ‘pay-tech’ players like Visa taking note - providing businesses the opportunity to accept larger card payments from their ‘cash-less’ customers. 65% of consumers stated they would prefer to use contactless payments as much as, or more than, they do currently said Visa.
Charlotte Hogg, Chief Executive Officer, Europe at Visa, commented: “The demand for touch-free payments indicates that contactless has become the norm for European consumers and retailers. They are also among the lowest fraud rates of any payment type”
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Enabling contactless payments will be key to Europe’s economic recovery and while raising contactless limits alone won’t revitalise the European economy, it is a step in the right direction, giving consumers the confidence to spend, and providing shops, restaurants and other retailers a boost just when they need it most.”
As facilitators of contactless payments, we too have experienced the increasing demand from payment solution providers. Who are looking to integrate our pay-tech software and framework within their existing payment strictures. Alongside small business owners, using our dedicated stand alone card reading app. Many of whom are looking to embrace and adapt to the change in consumer behaviour, as customers' ideals and safety concerns shift from the pandemic.
In fact uk finance noted that contactless payments accounted for 41% of all credit card and 60% of all debit card transactions in December 2020, showing few signs of slowing down as the UK economy sees pubs, retailers, beauty and entertainment reopening from April 12th.
Which feeds into the wider discussion of ‘Are we heading towards a cashless society, sooner than we think?’ Nordic countries like Sweden are already looking to go cashless by 2023, along with Finland being the most ready to transition towards a cashless society ranking second to Ireland in terms of frequency of card use. Across the world China has seen extreme developments in the rapid adoption of mobile payments notably though the use of QR codes, and the UK too ranks number two globally for e-commerce as a percentage of GDP, behind china.
At Dapio we believe that all signs are pointing toward a very obvious evolution in payment making and payment taking. The rise in popularity of the mobile e-wallet is a strong indicator of what is to come. Which prompted us four years ago to begin development on the corresponding and missing element in the payment equation… An app for merchants to accept payments, with the seamless nature at which their customers make them.