Contactless payments are one of those trends which may or may not become a big thing. Just last year, things were not looking overly positive, despite some growth in most countries around the world. The year 2016 is looking very promising, as the number of contactless payments, this year surpassed the total 2015 volume already. This is also good news for bitcoin, as it is a total cash-free solution.
Consumers Prefer Contactless This Year
Introducing such a new payment solution such as contactless transactions is not an easy task. Not only will consumers need to trust these solutions, but brick-and-mortar locations will need to embrace this solution as well. This process takes a lot of time, and we are only now starting to see the potential for contactless payments.
While the growth of this payment solution has been a bit slow in most countries, things are looking quite positive in the United Kingdom. The region was one of the first in the world to embrace this new solution, and contactless is slowly becoming the new norm. Mainstream Brits are enjoying this offering, and continue to spend more money through contactless payments than ever before.
To put this into perspective, nearly one in ten card spending transactions takes place in a contactless manner. This is already an 11% increase compared to the same period in 2015. More importantly, the year 2015 has seen 50 million more contactless transactions compared to all of 2015. An interesting increase, and only a sign of things to come.
At the same time, the average transaction value per contactless payment is still under ten Pounds Sterling This also indicates contactless payments are replacing cash when it comes to smaller purchases. In fact, it seems to be the most common use case for contactless options, as there is still a lower payment limit in place right now.
All of this is positive news for Bitcoin in the United Kingdom as well. Although these reports do not make an explicit mention of cryptocurrency, it is another contactless payment alternative. As the principle of using contactless solutions becomes entrenched in the habits of Brits, jumping to Bitcoin will only be a minor change.
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