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Visa Europe predicted that by the end of 2013, there would be 40 issuers with live NFC or contactless-mobile payment services across Europe and 80 smartphones certified by Visa to handle the payments.

Visa Europe made the prediction today in announcing its annual results for fiscal year 2012, in which it also predicted that contactless transactions would quadruple in calendar year 2013, mainly from contactless cards.

Visa Europe said contactless transactions had quadrupled in 2012, as well, but did not release transaction figures.

The payment network predicted there would be 70 million contactless cards supporting its contactless application, payWave, and 650,000 contactless point-of-sale terminals across Europe that could accept the application by the end of 2013.

Nearly all open-loop contactless payment terminals in Europe also support MasterCard PayPass. MasterCard late last year announced that contactless merchant locations in Europe had doubled in 2012, to 255,000. It didn’t release a figure on contactless POS terminals or a projection for 2013. Many merchant locations have multiple contactless terminals installed, one for each checkout lane.

Visa a year ago noted that there were 30 million payWave cards on issue at the end of 2011, and it expected that to grow to 50 million by the end of 2012.

Visa also didn’t disclose where Visa issuers would launch NFC or other contactless-mobile payment services in Europe. But they are expected in, among other countries, the UK, Poland, Turkey, Germany and France. Visa called the launches “mobile-contactless” payment, which would take in NFC, but presumably could also include bridge technologies.

Banks and other issuers are also expected to issue MasterCard PayPass for NFC or contactless-mobile services in many of the same countries, especially in such PayPass hotspots as Poland, Turkey and Italy, along with Germany, where MasterCard is working with Deutsche Telekom. The telco plans to launch its own NFC payments service soon, putting a PayPass application it issues onto its NFC SIM cards.

The UK is by far Visa’s largest market for payWave, and the payment network noted that in less than a month since Transport for London began accepting open-loop credit and debit cards for payment of fares on the 8,500 buses it oversees in London, customers have paid for 100,000 rides with contactless bank cards. Riders paid for 93% of those transactions with contactless Visa cards, according to Visa.

Visa said there were 26 million payWave cards on issue in the UK and nearly 143,000 terminals that could accept payWave there, according to its latest figures.

Visa predicted that there would be 33.7 million payWave cards on issue in the UK by the end of 2013 with 175,000 contactless POS terminals accepting them.

Visa said there are even more contactless terminals in Germany, but it’s unclear how many of them have been activated. Poland, France, Spain and Turkey also have substantial numbers of contactless terminals in Europe.

According to its latest figures, there were 7.7 million payWave cards on issue in Poland, 5 million in Turkey, 4.9 million in France and 1.9 million in Spain.

Visa Europe also said it would roll out its digital wallet V.me in 2013 in the UK, France and Spain. The wallet enables customers to store payment cards for online purchases on smartphones, tablets and PCs. Visa predicted large-scale growth of the wallet in Europe over the next several years.

“The year ahead will see us putting mobile-contactless payments into consumers’ hands and introducing digital wallets on a mass scale for the first time,” Peter, Visa Europe’s chief executive, said in a statement.