Growing number of Czechs use contactless payments
The Czech Republic is one of the leading countries in Europe for contactless card payments, the news site e15.cz on Friday. Last year, they carried out over one billion online payments, both in the Czech Republic and abroad.
Czech retailers also reported a record number of cashless transactions last year. In 2018 Czechs used contactless debit cards or a smartphone to pay a total of 853 million bills, while in the previous year, it was 638 million.
Contactless payments already make up the majority of all expenditures paid by credit cards. Overall, Czech used their cards for transactions to the tune of 699.7 billion crowns. Over 70 percent of that sum was paid using contactless payment.
The number of payment cards issued in the Czech Republic last year was 11.8 million, with 94 percent of the total being contactless cards.
“At the moment, it is difficult to find cards that wouldn’t enable contactless payment,” Miroslav Lukeš, general manager of Mastercard Czech Republic and Slovakia, told the news site e15, adding that most banks only issue contactless cards at present.
At the same time, the number of retailers who enable contactless payments continues to rise as well.
“Last year, around 90 percent of payment terminals accepted contactless cards. We expect to reach one hundred percent this year,” Marcel Gajdos, country manager for the Czech and Slovak branch of Visa, told e15.
According to experts from Visa and Mastecards, one of the main factors that fuels the boom of contactless payments is its use in public transportation.
