Share of credit and debit cards with contactless functionality in UK 2007-2020
Since contactless cards were first introduced in 2007, their popularity has been growing. At first, only credit cards could be contactless but in 2009 contactless debit cards also became available. As of October 2019, 83 percent of the credit and debit cards in the UK had contactless payment function. In comparison, as of 2012, five years after the rollout, only 20 percent of the cards were contactless.