Seven in ten consumers are confident with the security contactless cards/mobile wallets provide and 88% report a consistently positive user experience with NFC contactless technologies, a survey of consumers in nine countries around the world has found.

Two thousand consumers in the USA, China, Japan, South Korea, UK, Spain, France, Germany and Italy took part in the survey, which was conducted by ABI Research on behalf of the NFC Forum.

“The goal of the survey was to provide a greater understanding of consumer adoption, familiarity and experiences with NFC at both a global and regional level,” the NFC Forum says.

Most respondents are at least somewhat familiar with NFC as a technology, the survey found, but 18% are not familiar. Contactless payments are used by 45% and more than two-thirds have two or more cards stored in their digital wallets.

“NFC usage is much more common than many think. It is an extremely useful technology that you already have in the palm of your hand embedded in a smartphone or payment card,” says ABI Research research director Phil Sealy.

“The pandemic has created a surge in NFC usage. This survey shows that NFC use in payment scenarios pre-Covid-19 was high but, post-Covid-19, we predict that NFC will be extended to other use cases as consumers are showing an increasing reliance on the technology.”

“The UK reported the highest NFC contactless usage even beyond payment,” adds ABI analyst Andrew Zignani. “China had one of the highest penetration rates of contactless cards but, along with Germany, the lowest usage.

“The US has lagged behind in most areas but is now catching up rapidly.  For mobile wallets, Apple and Google Pay remain the most popular mobile payment platforms, although there are regional variations, such as extremely strong adoption of Samsung Pay in its home country of South Korea, Huawei Pay in China, and correspondingly low Google Pay usage in China.”

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