By 2026, nearly 30% of US consumers’ average retail spending (excluding food and beverage sales and ticketing) will be made using proximity mobile payments, as providers look to build on the pandemic-driven adoption of the technology.

EU probing Apple Pay: Restricting access to key NFC technologies on iPhones prevents EU banks from providing payment solutions, limiting competition. Mounting scrutiny could alter the duopoly’s payments dominance.

Proximity and peer-to-peer mobile payments are on the rise in the UK, thanks to high user adoption of mobile and banking. However, growth is slow, which means that wallet providers looking to crack the market will need to get creative.

Mobile proximity and peer-to-peer (P2P) payments have hit the mainstream, thanks to a pandemic-driven upswing in digital payments that is set to last. This trend is leading providers to diversify their offerings and compete for share of the market.

The US has been relatively late in introducing contactless cards, which are credit or debit cards that include a near field communication (NFC) chip that can complete a transaction simply by tapping on a reader. But those cards are starting to arrive in the US now that most point-of-sale (POS) systems have the NFC capabilities to accept them.

People in France were early adopters of smart payment cards, including chip-and-PIN and contactless technology. That has stifled proximity mobile payment adoption, with just 15.6% of France’s smartphone users expected to pay with their phone in-store in 2019.

This report features our latest forecasts for proximity mobile payment users in Latin America, with breakouts for Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. It also examines emerging trends and key drivers fueling regional market movements.

Growth in proximity mobile payment use in the UK remains slow but steady. Against a strong headwind of contactless card use, mobile payments have struggled to take hold, though young consumer use offers a glimmer of hope.

Of the 938.2 million proximity mobile payment users worldwide, over two-thirds reside in China and India. Consumer adoption is still in its early days for most markets, but there will be fast growth in retailer support and usage over the next few years.