York is the UK capital of contactless card payments, ranking ahead of Plymouth and London. Specifically, York comes out on top for the highest percentage uptake of contactless credit and debit card payments.

An impressive 84% of payments in York were made by contactless cards over the last year. This represents an increase of 10.6% from pre-pandemic levels.

Plymouth is close behind with 82% of payments proving contactless (also a +10.6% YoY increase). London follows with a 10.4% year-on-year increase of cash-free transactions.

Meantime, digital contactless payments such as Apple and Google pay are on the up. Hull leads with a monumental year-on-year increase of 646.8%, spurred by a 4.67% increase between 2020 and 2021.

Northampton, Plymouth and Truro rank next.

Contactless growth: regional variations

The figures are disclosed by UK merchant payment provider, Dojo, part of the Paymentsense brand.

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The stats disclose a number of notable regional variations.

Edinburgh ranks a healthy fifth for contactless growth but its larger neighbour, Glasgow is only 13^th. In the North West of England, Liverpool is sixth with Manchester out of the top 20.

Jon Knott, Head of Customer Insight at Dojo says:

“The Covid-19 pandemic has changed everyone’s lives in a number of ways that we could have never predicted even 13 months ago. Smaller businesses that were previously cash-only have rapidly changed how they operate to meet consumer demands and keep pace with larger competitors, so they don’t lose custom.

“It’s clear that the huge upturn in the use of contactless technology is speeding up the UK’s shift towards a cashless economy, but at a rate far beyond what anyone was expecting pre-coronavirus. With consumers now having embraced the ease and practicality of going contactless and with the introduction of the £100 contactless card limit set to launch this year we expect to see these changes stick.”