More than half of global transactions at the point of sale (PoS) will be contactless within five years, predicts Juniper Research.

The new study, PoS & MPoS Terminals: Vendor Strategies, Positioning & Market Forecasts 2017-2022, found that adoption in the US would rise sharply over the period, with contactless rising from less than two per cent of transactions this year to 34 per cent by 2022.

According to the report, customer dissatisfaction at the slower speeds of chip card transactions, coupled with the growing investment in global contactless infrastructure, will provide further impetus for smartphone-based payments currently dominated by Apple Pay.

For example, in markets where contactless has been heavily promoted, such as Poland and the UK, adoption has soared, while mandates from both Visa and Mastercard mean that all PoS terminals must be contactless-enabled by 2020.

Windsor Holden, author of the report, pointed out: “While US card issuers have not yet made contactless a priority, the extremely positive response across Europe, both from merchants and consumers, suggests that the US would see very rapid migration at POS if and when contactless cards become mainstream.”

The research also anticipates that smaller merchants will increasingly embrace MPoS accessories, which facilitate payments via a connection to a mobile device, as competition in the space intensifies. It argued that Square’s recent entry into the UK would provide an added stimulus to that market, while the growth in this market would in turn accelerate the transition from cash to card payments, particularly for lower-value transactions.

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