Canadians Embrace Contactless Payments, but Are Cautious About Other New Payment Forms

Canadians are now quite comfortable with contactless payments, but they view other new payment forms cautiously, according to new findings from Visa Inc.’s Canadian unit.

Some 52% of 1,000 adults polled in February for Toronto-based Visa Canada said they are regular users of contactless cards. Also, 80% of respondents said they view such cards as “a very convenient way to pay,” and 45% consider them very secure, according to a Visa news release.

Contactless payments in Canada are miles—or, more correctly, kilometers—ahead of their counterpart in the United States, although Visa is working to change that. The network recently reported that 48% of its Canadian point-of-sale transactions as of December were contactless, compared with less than 1% in the United States. A major reason for that is Canada had a head start of approximately five years in converting to EMV chip card payments. Most EMV terminals accept contactless payments, and, unlike the U.S., most Canadian payment cards are of the dual-interface variety that support contact and contactless chip card transactions.

But Canadians are less sure about other payment methods, particularly regarding security. Just 35% of respondents consider digital wallets very secure, followed by mobile apps, 34%; peer-to-peer Web sites, 27%; and wearables-based payments, 26%.

On a related note, only a small minority of consumers regularly use these new payment forms—mobile apps, 9%; digital wallets, 6%; peer-to-peer apps, 4%; or wearables, 3%.

“Emerging forms of payments use the same dynamic security as contact chip cards so while Canadians may see them as less secure than traditional methods at this time, as we have seen with contactless cards, we expect to see that perception change as consumers become more familiar with these new payment technologies,” Gord Jamieson, Visa Canada’s head of risk, said in the release.

The survey was conducted for Visa Canada by AYTM Market Research.