VISA Europe has issued it’s Annual Report for 2014

The headline numbers from 2014

• Visa accounts 509m
• Point-of-sale spending €1.417tr
• Point-of-sale growth 8.7%
• Clearing & settlement transactions processed €16.1bn

Visa Europe is a payments business. Our company is owned by some 3,078 banks and payment providers from 37 European countries. Together, we are making payments faster, more convenient and more secure than ever before

A highlight for 2014 was the surge in contactless

Across Europe, more than 100 million Visa cards are contactless, as are 1.8 million Visa terminals. Hundreds of big-name merchants are rolling-out contactless and annual transaction volumes exceeded 460 million which is 263% higher than the previous year and the value of those transactions is 283% higher than the previous year.

The very same terminals can be used for Visa contactless mobile payments – like Apple Pay and its Android smartphone equivalents.

V.me by Visa takes off across Europe

V.me by Visa is the new digital wallet solution from Visa Europe, which brings more speed and simplicity to online payments.

From its initial launch markets of France, Poland, Spain and the UK, V.me by Visa will expand to Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway and Sweden by the end of the 2015. Pilots will also be launched in the Czech Republic, Greece and Slovakia in 2015, taking the total number of countries offering the service to 12.

e-commerce spending continues to escalate

Today, e-commerce accounts for €1 in every €5.26 of spending on European Visa cards. This equates to 19% of our transaction volumes. Growth remains strong across all European countries.

Cloud-based payments

Visa’s Cloud-based Payments programme is now live for contactless payment services on Android smartphones. Members in ten markets are already bringing Visa Cloud-based Payment services to market, reporting a number of early successes, with further launches to be announced during 2015.

Tokenisation – our vision

Payment Tokenisation will act as a platform for innovation to help the development of scalable payment services via a variety of mobile technologies. Reducing the cost and complexity to deliver new and innovative services to cardholders will be a key benefit. Payment Tokens will also improve the security of digital payments.

The full report can be found here.