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ING, working with Samsung and NXP Semiconductors, is piloting a peer-to-peer payments app that uses ultra-wideband (UWB) technology to let users transfer money by simply pointing one handset at another. There is no need to enter another person's email address, phone number or International Bank Account Number (IBAN) when making a payment. UWB is a technology based on radio waves that that can precisely lock onto an object, discover its location and communicate with it.

According to a BearingPoint survey across seven European countries, cash is the most used payment method overall with contactless debit cards second. Cash use is significantly higher in Austria (79%) and Germany (71%), but respondents from Switzerland (63%), Ireland (61%), the Netherlands (57%), and France (55%) also show a relatively high level of cash use. Finland has a significantly lower frequency of cash usage at 43%.

"The diversity of payment options has changed dramatically in the fast-paced world of digital transactions. Two popular rivals have emerged among the different choices available: QR Payment and Tap and Pay. Each method has its benefits and reasons, allowing consumers to choose the best option for payment for their needs. We will explore the features of both QR Payment and Tap and Pay in this article to assist you in making informed decision-making."

"Financial intermediaries play an important role in consumer adoption and use of payment technology. Card schemes and card-issuing banks set rules for cashless payments between consumers and merchants. We document that these rules have a strong causal impact on the use of digital payment technology. We study an increase in the value limit for contactless cardholder verification ("tap-and-go" limit) that was introduced at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our analysis is based on anonymized, transaction-level data for a large sample of point-of-sale (POS) debit card payments between 2019 and 2021. We show that the increase in the "tap-and-go" limit caused a significant increase in the consumer use of contactless payments but only a minor increase in first-time adoption of this payment technology. Our results suggest that policy-makers are advised to consider the role of intermediaries and verification rules when evaluating payment innovations, such as instant payment systems or central bank digital currencies (CBDCs)."

The lifting of the UK limit on contactless payments in October 2021 to £100 (from £45) has led to a surge in tap-and-pay transactions. In September the average spend per contactless payment was £11.86, versus £15.30 in December. For 2021 as a whole, a total of 13.1 billion contactless payments were made, up 36% compared with 2020 and 52 per cent higher than pre-pandemic levels in 2019.

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) published a paper that examines how payment choice affects consumer discretionary spending using a proprietary dataset that links a payment-methods survey, a payment-diary survey and a behavioral survey for a representative sample of 1,138 Swiss consumers. It finds that "present-biased" consumers spend more, the more often they use cashless payment instruments. (Present-based consumers are those that score high on indicators of impulsivity and procrastination.) For consumers with low levels of present bias, we find that spending is unaffected by payment instrument usage. This suggests that designers of instant payment services and central bank digital currency (CBDC) wallets consider offering prepaid payment cards or of mobile-payment applications that allow consumers to manage and restrict their liquidity in a convenient manner.