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Why are contactless payments on the rise now?

By Puja Sharma

June 22, 2022

  • Contactless Credit Card
  • Contactless Payments
  • Digital Merchants
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Contactless payments

Contactless will fuel the digital payments ecosystem by offering more convenient and secure solutions to consumers and merchants across segments. Visa, the global leader in digital payments, released a whitepaper on the growth of contactless payments adoption in India. The report, ‘India taps into a Contactless Future’, drafted in partnership with payments processor Worldline, analyses India’s journey with digital payments infrastructure and contactless transactions, highlighting the rapidly growing adoption across regions and sectors.

Contactless transactions saw a tremendous surge in recent years, their contribution to total face-to-face (F2F) transactions growing by more than 6x – – from less than 2.5% in December 2018 to 16% in December 2021.

This mode of less-touch transaction in stores ensured consumer safety, a necessity since the pandemic. Additionally, the adoption of EMV chip cards has been pivotal for the growth of the contactless system, aided by supportive regulations that increased the contactless limit in India to Rs. 5,000 in 2021. The cohesive experience of such transactions, with their inherent convenience, speed, and enhanced security features is a major reason for rapid adoption by consumers, merchants, issuers, and payment processors.

Commenting on the whitepaper findings, Ramakrishnan Gopalan, Vice President, Head of Products and Solutions, for India and South Asia, Visa, said: “The rapid adoption of contactless payments in the past few years is testament to the rise in acceptance of safer and faster forms of cashless payments across consumer segments. We have observed that the key drivers of contactless growth – availability, convenience, utility, and security – will continue to aid adoption at scale as contactless cards become ubiquitous. We are confident that it is a sustainable payment solution for seamless face-to-face transactions and will help greatly in reaching the goal of a less-cash society.”

Through the pandemic, contactless payments recovered faster than other forms of face-to-face payment due to greater consumer ease and safety. Wider adoption of contactless payments will be an essential component in building smarter payments infrastructure and smarter cities. Contactless payments also result in repeat purchases and customer stickiness, and financial inclusion through cards, a familiar instrument to most consumers today.

Sunil Rongala, Senior Vice President, Strategy, Innovation, and Analytics, Worldline India, said: “As contactless payment methods have shifted from a choice to a necessity in recent times, backed with multiplying volumes of transactions in the last three years, we see immense potential in contactless further helping digitize the merchant ecosystem. Coupled with the increasing merchant acceptance of contactless cards we are seeing not only in metro cities but in non-metro cities as well, we anticipate contactless payments to be a key driver of digital payments in the future.”

Key findings

  • Highest adoption of contactless payments was observed in sectors like Quick Service Restaurants, pharmacies, food, grocery, etc., which accelerated with the impact of the pandemic.
  • According to Worldline India, while 25% of all transactions at supermarkets were contactless in January 2020, these transactions rose to 31% by January 2022.
  • The user footprint across India also stepped up with metro cities leading the way.
  • In 2020 and 2021, Delhi NCR, Karnataka, Gujarat, and Telangana had the highest proportion of contactless transactions and penetration, across both debit and credit cards.
  • Worldline India Digital Payments Report 2021 has shown that while cards contribute to 26% of all digital transactions, they generate 53% of the value of all digital commerce.

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