For the last several years the United States has been lagging behind most of the rest of the world when it comes to contactless payments technology, but all of that is starting to change.

The United States is poised to make a great leap in contactless payments and as it does it will improve the experience for everyone in the payments chain – especially for consumers making small purchases, such as a coffee or a fill-up at the gas station.

U.S. Contactless payments by the numbers:

• 46% of transactions occur at contactless enabled merchants
• 70% of locations are capable of contactless
• 80% of U.S. Visa® transactions occur face-to-face
• 98% of face-to-face transactions in mature contactless markets originate on card

– Source: atmmarketplace.com –

Visa has release June EMV statistics showing that the network continues to make progress on EMV migration in the U.S.

For the first time in history, the U.S. credit card processing industry is poised to pass the $1 trillion mark in total purchase value in Q4, according to a report by Forbes.

In Q2, total value grew nearly 10 percent year over year to a total of $927 billion, compared with $844 billion in 2017.

While Visa retains the number one spot in the industry with a 53 percent market share, the No. 2 position is up for grabs as American Express successfully implements an ambitious growth strategy, Forbes said.

• Source: https://atmmarketplace.com

Markets across Europe have made significant gains in the fight against card fraud, specifically in France and the UK, which achieved 6% and 8% reductions. Despite this, losses across the EMEA region grew by €30 million.

The threat of card not present (CNP) fraud continues to be a key battleground for banks and retailers, as we now see a global migration of fraudulent activities. In the UK, we have seen a continued growth in online card utilisation but reduction in the success of fraud perpetrated within the channel. This has forced the fraudsters to migrate their efforts to new markets, with Austria, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Poland and Russia all seeing an escalation in losses.

Despite being the top country in this chart, the UK reduced basis points losses from 7.00 in 2016 to 5.9, driven by improvements across all areas of card fraud but specifically in CNP fraud, which shows signs of continued reduction in 2018. Similarly, France reduced its fraud basis points from 8.9 to 5.5.

Fraud basis points is a standard measure of card fraud severity, and can show how a bank or a country is doing relative to others. 8.9 basis points is equivalent to 8.9 cents per €100. It works the same in any currency and provides an indicator of the fraud-to-sales ratio.

The UK alone now accounts for 47% of the losses reported within this report; the UK, France and Russia account for 77%. Losses within Germany, Spain and Italy continue to hold at a static level but we are seeing a desire to replicate the loss reductions seen in other markets.

HIGHLIGHTS:

• – UK losses fell 8% due to success battling card not present fraud
• – Total card fraud losses across the 19 European countries studied grew by €30 million, or 2%
• – The UK, France and Russia account for 77% of card fraud losses in EMEA

– paymentscardsandmobile.com –

Payments made using contactless technology are forecast to exceed USD 1 trillion worldwide this year, according to an analysis by Juniper Research.

The estimation refers to both card and smartphone-enabled contactless payments, adding that by 2020, over 450 million people will make payments exclusively using their smartphones.

Although Google’s Android OS has a market share of 85 percent, the research predicts that half of the mobile contactless payments will be made using Apple Pay. Google’s own partners, such as Samsung and Huawei, have their own contactless payment solutions installed on their smartphones.

Another reason for Apple Pay’s predicted lead could be the fact that Apple users normally have higher incomes, which means they are more likely to want to use new payment methods.

By 2020, according to Juniper, contactless smartphone payments will account for USD 300 billion in spending, while the rest will still be made by contactless cards.

In the next four years, researchers say there will be more than 10 billion contactless payments made with smartphones, and by 2029, both card and smartphone payments will reach a value of USD 2 trillion – 15 percent of the total payments made worldwide.

– Source: business-review.eu –