PayPass growing in Europe
2012 milestones for MasterCard PayPass show that consumers are embracing the Tap&Go payment experience in 26 countries across Europe (8 new countries in 2012).PayPass provides consumers and merchants with an alternative to cash for everyday purchases. It can be added to any MasterCard® or Maestro® debit, credit or prepaid card.
Since January 2012 growth in cards enabled with PayPass is up more than 50% and top PayPass countries such as Poland have more than 50% cards enabled. Moreover, large PayPass card footprints are now well established in France, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Russia, Switzerland and the UK with close to or far above a million enabled cards.
Retail acceptance almost doubled in the same time period and has now reached 255,000 locations in Europe. “For IKEA, we’re now seeing one out of every five transactions on a MasterCard branded card being a contactless one and are very satisfied with the introduction of PayPass in all eight of our IKEA stores in Poland. We have experienced improvement in the reduction of queues with the help of PayPass, particularly at peak times like lunchtime in the restaurant or during weekends at the retail cashiers” said Zofia Korbasiewicz, Treasury Manager from IKEA in Poland.
Convenience and speed rank highly for big retailers like IKEA, and also for transit business partners such as Transport for London (TfL). TfL recently announced the acceptance of MasterCard PayPass and Maestro PayPass for fare payment on London buses as of December 2012.
“2012 has been a turning point for PayPass in Europe as it is now in the hands of millions of consumers and accepted by thousands of merchants across Europe”, says Chris Kangas, Head of PayPass at MasterCard Europe.
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