Contactless payments grow 49% in Asia-Pacific

Small businesses are flourishing in Asia-Pacific thanks to an increased use of contactless payments, according to MasterCard.  New research shows the number of unique contactless users in the region grew 49 per cent year-on-year in 2014.

Asia-Pacific is seeing a rise in contactless payments because of improved security and because contactless payments provide more convenience to consumers. With mobile Point of Sale (mPOS) technology expanding in the continent, Asian countries such as Indonesia and Vietnam are now able to accept contactless payments. Vietnam aims to reduce cash payment to below 11 percent of total transactions, and have some 250,000 card-accepting merchants and 200 million transactions per year by 2015.

This appears to be having a positive impact upon small and medium sized businesses.  ‘‘More and more, we see small businesses turning to mPOS solutions to help expand their customer base and sales,’’ said Raj Dhamodharan, head of emerging payments at MasterCard Asia/Pacific.

Contactless payments are thriving in the Asia-Pacific region, with MasterCard showing that Australia had the highest number of contactless transactions in 2014. The country also accounted for nearly two-thirds of all MasterCard in-store contactless payments, a growth rate of 45 per cent compared with 2013.

Singapore and Hong Kong have also felt the positive impact of contactless payments. Hong Kong saw their figures for contactless transactions quadruple between 2014-15 and Singapore doubled its number of unique contactless users between 2013-2014, with one in five Visa transactions in Singapore now being conducted using contactless payments.

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