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Comment by Brakenshire | Hacker News Reader

They’re claiming 5% of global card transactions, that surely can’t be true, there are quite a few developed countries where iPhones are not that common, and countries where other contactless payment systems are already widespread. And what about middle income and poor countries?

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I think it might be true on the grounds that credit cards are only king in the US and Latin America, whereas they represent less than 10% of cashless payments in the large markets, namely Asia.

Developed countries have more accessible and cheaper systems, like M-Pesa. In China, you generally just scan a QR code to make a payment. Neither of these systems piggyback on the expensive and slow credit card system.

So, I think this statistic might be as true as it is misleading. Impressive marketshare, just not as big a market.

In Australia I would say that about 90% of card transactions are contactless and of them a good 30% use some type of phone payment. Isn't even blinked at any more.

Is debit payment a big thing in Australia? For smaller payment amounts I see debit cards way more frequently than CC or mobile.

Debit payments are around 3x as popular as credit payments here and there is, last I heard, a 50-50 split between using cards and phones to make them. There's an interesting demographic association to it as well, credit is much much more popular with older people (50+). Every few months you see a "millennials are killing the credit card industry" fuss.

The U.S. is notoriously behind on this sort of stuff

The US was way ahead on credit cards to begin with, and was then leapfrogged by countries building payment infrastructure with newer technology. There’s no reason the US couldn’t re-leapfrog with its next generation.

"The U.S. is notoriously behind on this sort of stuff"

Which is to say, after inventing the credit card, the US has since fallen behind.

Too busy inventing The Internet I suppose ...

> Which is to say, after inventing the credit card, the US has since fallen behind.

Yes, it has indeed.

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