European Interest in Contactless Payments Creates Bitcoin Adoption Opportunities

Customers all over the world are looking to gain access to more convenient payment methods for everyday purchases. Cash transactions prove to be quite a hassle at times, and consumers want to spend as little tile as possible on making payments. Contactless payments are an answer to this solution, and this form of payment is gaining a lot of momentum across all of Europe. In the long run, this could benefit Bitcoin adoption as well.

Also read: Microsoft Experimenting with Ripple on Azure Blockchain Developer Environment

Europeans Embrace Contactless Payments

Research from RBR shows that, at the end of 2014, 15% of all payment cards across Europe had contactless payment capabilities.  That is quite a significant number, considering how major card issuers Visa and Mastercard have not even begun the major rollout of their new cards and payment terminals in Europe yet.

But that is not the only interesting trend, as the number of contactless transactions has grown exponentially as well. A total of 1.4 billion contactless payments, worth €15 billion, had been made in Europe by the end of 2014.Compared to 2013, those numbers increased by 155£ and 190% respectively, showing a growing interest in the contactless payment option by European.

Despite these very promising numbers, there is still a lot of work to be done before contactless payments can be deemed a “ mainstream success”. Compared to the total amount of card transactions and their respective values, contactless payments only represent 2£ of all transactions and 0.5% of the total card payment value for 2014.

But there is some positive news too, as the number of cards equipped for contactless payments will treble by 2020, increasing its market share to nearly 40% of all European payment cards. Just increasing the number of contactless payment cards on its own is not sufficient, though, as payment terminals will need to be upgraded as well.

This is where Visa and Mastercard will start a more aggressive campaign, by increasing the number of terminals to accept contactless payments come early 2016. Eventually, all of the existing terminals will be upgraded by early 2020, which evens the playing field for both contactless and regular card payments.

Bitcoin Adoption To Rise As Well?

As more and more payment terminals across Europe will be equipped with NFC capabilities, there is a major opportunity for Bitcoin adoption as well. Retailers and consumers are not yet used to making contactless payments, yet once they do, using Bitcoin will become much easier as it is very similar to this new system they learned to use.

Bitcoin payments have had contactless payment capabilities for quite some time now, yet user adoption has always been on the low end. Piggybacking on the efforts by Visa and MasterCard – albeit indirectly – doesn’t have to be a negative thing. As long as consumers have multiple payment options at their disposal, Bitcoin adoption will thrive sooner or later.

Source: Report via Email

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