“While the full impact of Covid-19 on tap to pay adoption across the world is yet to be fully seen, early indications highlight a shift in consumer spend toward every day, essential segments where contactless usage is high, such as grocery and pharmacy,” Visa says.

“In the US, this is leading to increasing awareness and usage among consumers who are looking to limit interaction during checkout during this time,” the payments network explains.

“Tap to pay transactions in everyday segments in the US including grocery and pharmacy have grown more than 100% year over year. 31 million Americans tapped a Visa contactless card or digital wallet in March 2020, up from 25 million in November, with overall contactless usage in the US growing 150% since March 2019.

“The US now has the most contactless cards of any market globally at 175m, with nine of the top 10 US issuers actively rolling out new contactless cards to customers.”

“Visa has worked with payments industry partners and governments to support raising contactless payments limits in markets around the world that require cardholder verification on tap to pay transactions,” Visa adds.

“More than 50 markets across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and in Canada have taken the important step to help more individuals utilize this safe and reliable way to pay.

“In the UK alone in the first three weeks of April, with the new increased contactless limit, we have seen an approximately 50% reduction in the number of times Visa cardholders needed to touch a checkout terminal to complete their transaction.”

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