The fourth quarter of 2014 saw a steep increase in contactless card payments in Europe, including NFC-based purchases made via smartphone, according to MasterCard.
The credit card giant said the number of contactless transactions it handled grew by 174 per cent in Q4, compared to the same period in 2013.
However, it should be borne in mind that such payments are still growing from a relatively low base, so are likely to show impressive numbers at this stage.
MasterCard does not break out phone-based payments from those made via debit and credit card.
However, the firm is working on more than 70 live mobile NFC projects in 22 European countries. The factors that could inspire greater take-up include the launch of Apple Pay in one or more European countries and wider take-up of host card emulation (HCE).
“In 2014, MasterCard published its specifications that leverage Host Card Emulation for secure NFC contactless payment transactions. HCE provides another deployment option for issuers to launch NFC wallets,” said Javier Perez, president of MasterCard Europe.
HCE enables user data to be held in the cloud, rather than on the SIM card of a mobile device.
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