The total volume of contactless card transactions in Europe increased 155% to 1.4 billion in 2014, according to a report published by Retail Banking Research (RBR).
The study, Global Payments Cards Data and Forecasts to 2020, revealed that Visa was the largest contactless payment scheme in the region.
Visa payWave accounted for a 61% share of the region’s 1.4 billion contactless payments during the period, and was the largest scheme, especially in developed contactless card markets such as Poland and the UK.
Visa was followed by MasterCard (including Maestro) PayPass accounts, which accounted for majority of the remaining share of the contactless market.
MasterCard PayPass represented the highest proportion of payments in several growing but relatively underdeveloped countries across the region such as Netherlands and Russia.
The other schemes represented less than 2% of contactless payments in combination.
Contactless payment volume is anticipated to increase nine-fold between 2014 and 2020 as the technology gains foothold in more countries in the region, the study added.
