Belgians’ mobile and contactless payments increased significantly in 2020, according to the annual results of the Bancontact Payconiq Company published on Tuesday.
Last year, 1.65 billion transactions were made with the Bancontact card or the Payconiq application, which is an increase of 10% compared to the previous year.
"In total, Belgians used their smartphones 125 million times to pay mobile with the Payconiq by Bancontact app (or a banking app that offers the Bancontact and/or Payconiq payment solutions),” the company said.
That corresponds to 11 mobile payments per person and represents an increase of 88% compared to the year before.
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For online payments, transactions with a smartphone were widely used (68% of the total, compared to 58% the year before), to such an extent that "the card reader will soon become a relic of the past,” according to the company.
Offline, card payments are increasingly being made contactless. Last year, 442 million contactless payments were made with the Bancontact card, an explosion of around 283% compared to 2019. Just under half, 42%, of all Bancontact card payments are now contactless.
"It therefore seems that the coronavirus crisis has profoundly changed our payment habits: less cash, more contactless with the card or our smartphone," the company concluded.
The Brussels Times
