Contactless payment up 560% in 12 months

This is a significant rise from the 373% increase reported in the year to July 2014.

The average amount spent in contactless purchases was £7.29, up from the £4.52 average in 2012.

Mastercard said that each year since 2012 individual cardholders have, on average, doubled the number of times they tap to pay showing a growing confidence among people of the system and greater acceptance of the system among retailers.

Mark Barnett, president of MasterCard UK & Ireland said: “We expect this upward trend to persist with consumers continuing to migrate to contactless card payments and increasingly to mobile payments as we work with partners such as Apple to enable more convenient ways to pay.”

From September 1st the maximum allowable spent in a single contactless transaction will increase to £30 (from the current £20 ).