If there is one metric that can be used to most clearly present the rising success of contactless payments, it would be monthly spend. New research from the UK Cards Association shows that monthly contactless card spending has passed the £2 billion mark in July.
It was last November that spending on contactless cards has hit a record £1 billion in a single month for the first time. In January of that year it only added up to £287m. In all of 2015, contactless spending reached £7.75 billion. In 2014, £2.32 billion was spent using contactless. By March 2016, monthly contactless spend hit £1.5 billion.
And now, the UK Cards Association research has found that in July, contactless spend passed the £2 billion mark. In the first six months of 2016, contactless payments totalled £9.27 billion.
Richard Koch, head of policy at The UK Cards Association, said:
“Consumers’ adoption of contactless continues apace, with the number of contactless payments jumping by a tenth in just one month. At over £2 billion, contactless spending in July was more than three times higher than the same period last year.”
The rise of contactless in no small way contributed to the overall increase in card spending. Latest figures from the UKCA show that £54.3 billion was spent on payment cards in August 2016, up 4.2% from £52.1 billion in August 2015.
“Spending on cards as a proportion of overall spending increased to 77 per cent in August, despite a slight downturn in spending in the wake of the EU referendum. More and more spending is via cards, which are central to the economy and used increasingly for smaller, everyday purchases,” Koch added.
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