Visa has over 20 m contactless cards in India

Visa, a global leader in payments technology, has crossed over 20 million Visa Contactless cards now issued in India.

This is significant given that the first Visa Contactless card was launched three years ago in 2015. Visa also revealed that the acceptance infrastructure for such cards has crossed one million terminals across the country.

“In over three years, along with our clients, we have been able to promote the benefits of contactless cards to over 20 million consumers across India. Besides the significant push in building awareness, we have helped expand India’s contactless acceptance infrastructure to over one million points”, said T R Ramachandran, Group Country Manager for Visa in India & South Asia.

He also added that due to the government’s push towards enabling contactless payments, Visa expects theis number to increase in the next few months.

Globally, over 1.5 billion contactless payment cards are expected to be issued by the end of 2018 and will account for 50 per cent of all payment cards shipped.

“With 20 million contactless cards powered by Visa today in India, we have reached critical mass, adding to the building blocks of the cashless payments infrastructure of the country”, said Ramachandran.

He added that across the world, contactless cards have proven to be a significant catalyst in improving consumer stickiness for digital payments and Visa expects India to be amongst its biggest adopters in the next few months.

With more banks currently issuing contactless cards, Indian consumers are now experiencing a faster way to pay at supermarkets, dining, entertainment venues and retailers such as Big Bazaar, Reliance Retail, PVR, Vishal Mega Mart etc.

Over 3.3 million merchants in India now accept cashless payments through multiple payment options. Contactless card payments help realise the government’s vision of Digital India, of which digital payments is a prime focus area.

They make the payment experience smooth, considerably shortening checkout time from over a minute to just a few seconds. Consumers get the convenience of simply tapping and paying for transactions, whether at large retail outlets or at the neighbourhood grocery.

The government’s push towards digital payments was further strengthened with a directive in July 2018 to consider adding NFC (contactless) capabilities, in addition to the EMV chip feature, and for all cards being upgraded as part of the RBI mandate to replace all existing magstripe cards by December 2018.

With a slew of transit projects including metros coming up across the country, Indian contactless cardholders could soon benefit from an interoperable and seamless payment experience while on the go.

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