When Will Contactless Cards Finally Catch On in the U.S.?
U.S. consumers are behind other countries when it comes to paying with contactless technology.
Apr 15, 2019
NEW YORK– The United States continues to lag behind many other countries when it comes to paying for goods and services via contactless cards, CNBC reports. The technology lets customers pay simply with a tap of their card directly onto a contactless terminal at checkout.
This type of technology is in widespread use in many other countries, but only a small fraction of U.S. cards (3%) have contactless capabilities. In the United Kingdom, that number is around 64%, while nearly every card is capable of contactless payment in South Korea (94%), according to a 2018 survey by A.T. Kearney.
Contactless technology provides a faster checkout, similar to the tap-and-go function of digital wallets. With a larger and more fragmented marketplace of retailers and banks, the United States has been more difficult to penetrate with contactless cards.
“It means that it’s much easier to coordinate change for the industry in the U.K.,” said Adrian Buckle, head of research at industry group UK Finance. Contactless payments have been around in the United Kingdom since 2014, when it was introduced in its public transportation system. “We went from very little usage to very rapid growth in a short space of time,” he said.
Contrast that with the United States, where many consumers and merchants still are adjusting to chip payments. However, analysts predict that the change to contactless cards in the United States likely will be smother because the new chip readers already have contactless technology capability.
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