ABI Research has released a new report predicting one billion contactless payment cards, EMV dual interface or otherwise, will ship globally in 2016. The estimation marks a nearly six-fold increase from the 170 million contactless cards shipped in 2010.
Furthermore, the report predicts that smart card shipments will overtake mag-stripe card shipments by 2015, although ABI says that mag-stripe cards will still have a “significant hold” on the payment cards market through to 2016.
Much of this growth can be expected from developing countries, according to the report.
“The entire banking population worldwide is increasing,” research analyst Phil Sealy explains. “As countries become developed, the demand for banking services increases. For the banks, the primary reason for EMV migration is that EMV provides a higher level of security over mag-stripe cards. As such, card-based fraud is more prevalent in countries with the weakest security protocols.”
The report, titled “Payment Cards,” cites China as the region to watch. According to ABI, China now has 2.3 billion payment cards in circulation, all of which will need to be replaced by smart cards in the country’s effort to undergo a complete transition to smart cards by 2015. ![[end]](/resources/bullet/contactlessnews-4.gif)
