Brits To Spend £1.2bn A Week In Mobile Payments By 2020

British shoppers will spend over £1.2 billion a week using their mobile devices, such as smartphones and wearables, by 2020, according to predictions released today by Visa Europe.

One in four of us believe we will be spending more than £50 a week on mobile by 2020, the survey found, fuelling a three-fold growth in mobile payments. Sixty percent admitting they expect to use their mobile devices for payments at least once a week by this time.

Rising higher?

“While we’re excited to see consumers saying they expect to triple their weekly spend using mobile payments over the next five years, we at Visa think those numbers could be rather conservative and that the actual adoption rate will be much higher,” said Jeremy Nicholds, executive director for mobile at Visa Europe.

“This is particularly true when you look at the growth in contactless usage, which saw European usage grow by 2x and spend grow by 3x over the last 12 months. Contactless and online commerce enhancements have been key in paving the way for the next generation of mobile payment technology. The environmental conditions are already in place to meet the demands and expectations for digital payments.”

“It’s no longer a question of ‘if’ consumers will embrace this new way to pay – it’s when – and for us the next 12 months are when mobile payments become mainstream.”

Tap and go

Visa’s report came alongside new figures showing that the UK is also spending more money using contactless payments than ever before.

The UK Card Payments 2015, published by The UK Cards Association (UKCA) has revealed that total spending using contactless cards trebled last year to £2.32 billion, spread across 319 million transactions.

Spurred on by new initiatives such as Transport for London’s adoption of contactless payment (pictured above), this marked a 331 percent rise in transactions since 2014, as British consumers continued to switch from using cash.

Overall, UK consumers spent over £19,000 every second using their cards last year as the number of purchases surged by more than a tenth, as total UK-issued debit, credit and charge card spending both domestically and overseas rose by 8.2 per cent in 2014 to reach a record £600.3bn.

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