Consumer Behavior

Contactless transactions soared in vending during pandemic

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August 15, 2022

Contactless transactions soared during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a joint study by Cantaloupe Inc., a digital payments and software services company that provides end-to-end technology solutions for the unattended retail market, and the Broad College of Business at Michigan State University.

The study, which analyzed a sample set of 160,000 Cantaloupe ePort cashless devices across various location segments, indicated contactless transactions at vending machines soared during the height of the COVID pandemic from January 2020 to October 2021.

The share of cashless transactions increased from 51% in January 2020 to 62% in October 2021 compared to cash transactions, which decreased to from 49% to 38% in the same time period, according to a press release.

The rise in cashless payments overall is being driven by consumer adoption of contactless payments, or any payment method that uses either near-field communication or radio frequency identification technology to "tap to pay" — such as a credit or debit card with a chip, or a mobile wallet.

The study found that from January 2020 to October 2021, contactless transactions had grown steadily month to month from 18% to 43% of total cashless transactions.

Cantaloupe's purchase data from January to November 2021 also showed an increase of EMV (Europay, Mastercard, and Visa) digital payments growing from 1 million transactions to 3 million.

Cantaloupe predicts the number of EMV transactions to grow by an additional 2 million in 2022, reflecting the impact of EMV security changes by payment processors and card brand issuers.

Vending operators should be aware of the revenue risks if their card readers are not EMV compliant, according to Cantaloupe.