Ingenico Group UK
The campaign, running from March to May and featuring British actors Joanna Lumley and Brian Blessed, highlights the ease of using contactless, either via card, mobile or wearables. It emphasizes how users can “simply touch and pay” for anything up to £30 at over 400, 000 places, from independent shops, newsagents and non-supermarket grocery stores to cafes and pubs.
Visa Europe's long-term objective is to reduce the use of cash by 2020 and make every point-of-sale terminal in the UK contactless by then.
The UK is leading the contactless market. Australia and Canada are also adopting contactless but the US is lagging behind, according to Karen Webster, CEO of Market Platform Dynamics.
She believes that there “doesn't seem to be that much of an incentive” in the US for Apple Pay users to switch to contactless. Another factor is that the US lacks the concentrated banking/acquiring and retail segments that the UK and Australia have.
