The proportion of contactless payments made for purchases from vending machines in the US increased from 18% of all transactions in January 2021 to 43% in October 2021, has now reached 48% and “could grow by another 12%” by the end of this year, a new study reveals.

The study also shows that contactless transaction values at low-volume machines or those with sales of less than US$2,000 per year doubled from a total of US$7m in January 2021 to US$14m in October 2021.

Overall, cashless transactions for vending machine purchases grew from 51% in January 2020 to 62% in October 2021, with a corresponding decrease in cash transactions from 49% to 38% over the same period, according to the survey.

“The rise in cashless payments overall is being driven by consumer adoption of contactless payments, or any payment method that uses either near field communication (NFC) or radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to ‘tap to pay’ — such as a credit or debit card with a chip, or a mobile wallet,” the researchers say.

The study was conducted by digital payments technology provider Cantaloupe in partnership with Michigan State University and is based on data from 160,000 Cantaloupe ePort cashless devices across “various location segments” in the USA.

A Cantaloupe and Michigan State University study found that digital payments exceeded cash purchases at US vending machines for the first time in June 2021.

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