Contactless card market size rose 100 percent to 450 million in 2013, said the Smart Payment Association (SPA).
Market such as Asia Pacific that showed 193 percent growth, Europe 64 percent and Americas 45 percent were the main growth drivers.
SPA said 37 percent of all payment cards shipped to issuers worldwide in 2013 featured contactless technology.
Dual interface cards, incorporating both chip and PIN and contactless technologies, increased 115 percent in 2013, largely driven by growth in Asia and Europe. Dual interface cards now represent 94 percent of all contactless shipments, said SPA.
The deployment of contact payment infrastructures, which includes terminals and POS, is paving the way for mobile payments and accelerating the introduction of NFC to mass markets.
More than 1.5 billion cards were shipped last year, with the Asia Pacific region growing 75 percent driven largely by China’s migration to chip based payments and the initiation of EMV in India. EMEA rose 12 percent driven by SEPA rules which enforce chip and PIN and the growth of EMV in Russia.
North America had 37 percent increase reflecting the completion to EMV by Canada and the escalating migration to EMV currently underway in the USA.
Adoption rates of Dynamic Data Authentication (DDA) mechanisms escalated by over 66 percent to account for more than half of all global card shipments, thanks to the major payment schemes pushing forward with DDA or Combined Data Authentication (CDA) schemes to combat fraud and respond to the increasing adoption of contactless payments.
The majority of dual interface cards are now using DDA technology, with significant growth being seen in mature and rapidly maturing markets. Asia Pacific exhibited the greatest increase in DDA adoption (up 155 percent) while the Americas demonstrated strong growth of 77 percent. Meanwhile, CISMEA & Eastern Europe combined registered an increase of 31 percent in DDA-enabled cards.
