NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Half of all domestic face-to-face transactions with Visa-branded cards globally–outside of the U.S.–are expected to be contactless within the next two months, with Visa reporting that contactless technology is maturing in numerous countries worldwide, mainly in Europe and Asia.
But in the U.S., which is Visa’s largest market by far, contactless payments are just getting rolling, with such major issuers as JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America finally beginning to deploy contactless EMV cards in significant numbers starting this year and with more merchants accepting contactless. Contactless transactions in the U.S.– mainly from digitized cards loaded into NFC-enabled smartphones–are only in the low single digits as a percentage of total face-to-face Visa transactions.
Visa, the largest card payments network globally outside of China, said last week that domestic face-to-face transactions using Visa-branded cards reached 48% of total domestic face-to-face transactions outside of the U.S., for the quarter ending in March 2019. Visa CEO Al Kelly disclosed the contactless penetration rate as part of prepared remarks in a conference call with financial analysts for Visa’s fiscal second quarter earnings report.
