US Has the Largest Contactless Payment Card Market in the World with 10 Million Devices In Circulation

Research and Markets has announced the addition of Contactless Payments 2006 to their offering.

Despite accounting for a growing share of payments, cards are not widely used for low value transactions. However, saturation makes this an important area for issuers to target, and contactless payments offer a way to capture some of this activity. But what are the recent developments? Which markets offer the greatest opportunity? What does the future hold? This report provides the answers.

Scope of this title:

• This report builds on our previous coverage, providing detailed analysis and overview of recent global developments in contactless payments.

• In-depth coverage of the successful launch in the US provides a blueprint for successful contactless rollouts in other markets.

• A comprehensive data model, delivered in Excel, sizes the potential market for contactless payments across six key merchant sectors in 41 countries.

• The views of our Cards & Payments Team on the likely future developments in contactless payments in the Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe.

Highlights of this title:

• Cash accounts for a significant proportion of total consumer payments even in the most developed card markets. Figures from our Consumer Payments Model show that cash accounted for around 20.4 per cent of the total value of consumer payments in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK and the USA, in 2003. This is down from 21.6 per cent in 1999.

• The US is also the worlds largest contactless payment card market. By the end of the first quarter of 2006, there were more than 10 million contactless devices in circulation in the US, with acceptance reaching over 160,000 terminals in 30,000 merchant locations. This shows rapid growth over what is a short space of time.

• The largest potential opportunity for contactless payments is in the service station retail sector. The value of cash transactions below a value of US$25 for both petrol and service station based convenience retail in the 41 markets covered in the model was US$376 billion (EUR303 billion) in 2004.

Reasons to order your copy:

• Discover the latest developments in contactless payments, and find out what has been happening in your key markets.

• See the scale of the potential market opportunity for contactless payments in both developed, and developing, card markets.

• Learn from the US rollouts to see how to manage a successful contactless payment launch.

For more information visit www.researchandmarkets.com.