Contactless payments pass 1m mark

"Tap and go" contactless payments have reached more than one million transactions a month across the UK, research has found.

Barclaycard recorded the payments milestone in July, using figures from itself and Barclays, which has issued more than 90% of the contactless cards on the market.

More than 80% of people can identify the contactless symbol, almost double the proportion compared with similar research carried out a year ago, the study found.

Some 61% of those surveyed said they prefer using cards over cash to buy items costing up to £20.

Contactless payments enable customers to make a purchase of £20 and under without the need to sign or enter a pin, and more than 19 million contactless-enabled Barclaycards and Barclays debit cards have been issued.

There are more than 100,000 point-of-sale terminals that accept contactless payments in the UK and by the end of the year it is predicted that there will be in excess of 150,000.

Richard Armstrong, retailer relationship director at Barclaycard, said: "The number of people using contactless has rocketed over the last year and, across Barclays, we're now seeing our customers make more than a million such payments per month.

"A host of retailers have announced the move to contactless, including Starbucks, Waitrose and the M6 toll road."

More than 2,000 people from across the UK were surveyed for the research.