Global NFC payment value in 2020 with forecasts to 2024, by region

Paying with NFC - swiping a payment card or a smartphone over a reader - is expected to triple in market size in Europe between 2020 and 2024. However, this particular region is believed to be eventually outperformed by Latin America or the 'rest of the world' region. One reason for this could be the splintered approach in Europe when it comes to payments, as significant differences were observed in contactless payment adoption between the various European countries. Another could be the high preference for cards rather than cash in both the Middle East as well as Africa seen right before the COVID-19 pandemic - as debit or credit cards are a likely user of NFC technology. Apps like Apple Pay or Google Pay can also use contactless payment technology, but this was especially found in China: the Asian country was seen as the world's leading country on proximity mobile payments - contactless payments which involve a smartphone - due to the popularity of Alipay and Tenpay.