Contactless Payments grew by 6 times in India: Know all the benefits

Contactless payments witnessed a 6 times growth in India in the last three years and the highest adoption was observed in sectors like quick-service restaurants, pharmacies, food, and grocery, a new report showed on Thursday. Contactless payments saw a tremendous surge in recent years, especially during the pandemic, and their contribution to total face-to-face transactions grew by more than 6 times, from less than 2.5 per cent in December 2018 to 16 per cent in December 2021, according to a whitepaper by Visa and Worldline India. Additionally, the adoption of EMV chip cards has been pivotal for the growth of contactless payments, aided by supportive regulations that increased the contactless limit in India to Rs 5,000 in 2021. In 2020 and 2021, Delhi-NCR, Karnataka, Gujarat, and Telangana had the highest proportion of contactless transactions and penetration, across both debit and credit cards "Coupled with the increasing merchant acceptance of contactless cards we are seeing not only in metro cities but in non-metro cities as well, we anticipate contactless payments to be a key driver of digital payments in the future," said Sunil Rongala, Senior Vice President, Strategy, Innovation and Analytics, Worldline India.