The global appetite for contactless technologies shows no sign of abating as the 2013 Contactless Intelligence Contactless & Mobile Awards honour achievements across a wide range of sectors and countries throughout Europe and further a field.

Now in its sixth year, the Contactless & Mobile Awards (sponsored by Visa Europe) has yet again attracted a record turnout, making it an important fixture in the contactless calendar. “We’ve seen entry numbers grow year-on-year, highlighting the dynamism of this burgeoning industry,” said Steve Atkins, CEO of Krowne Communications, the company behind Contactless Intelligence. “Whereas other awards ceremonies focus on behind-the-scenes technological innovations, we honour those firms that are really making a difference in getting contactless devices into the hands of users and encouraging consumers to use them at both major international and small retailers throughout the world. We like to think that our categories reflect the growing spectrum of uses and implementations of contactless and NFC technology as you would expect from such a dynamic industry. The quality and quantity of entries reflect this dynamism.”

This year’s CMA champions accepted their trophies at a gala dinner at Tower Bridge Hilton, London, on April 30, 2013. The winners are:

• Competitive Advantage – Cardis International (Netherlands)
• Transportation and Ticketing – Garanti Bank (Turkey)
• Mobile Payment – T-Mobile (Poland)
• Innovation – Rosetta Stone (US)
• Customer Experience – Watchdata (China)
• Loyalty – Loylogic (Switzerland)
• Public Domain – Connecthings (France)
• Marketing Campaign – Tapit (Australia)
• Infrastructure – VeriFone / Marks & Spencer (UK)
• Eco-System – CBT (Spain)

In addition, Visa Europe presented its Visa payWave award for Best Contactless Awareness and Education Campaign to Barclaycard (UK), while Craig Borrett & Mike Everton from Marks & Spencer (UK) took joint ownership of the Visa payWave Business Leader of the Year prize.

“Visa is delighted to be sponsoring the Contactless and Mobile Awards again in 2013. The high standard of nominations this year is evidence of tremendous growth in the market. Contactless momentum is building and it’s clear we have passed the tipping point. There are now more than 55 million Visa contactless cards in Europe, and by the end of 2013 that number will be in excess of 70 million. Those cards can be used at over 700k terminals across Europe and as a result transaction volumes have increased five-fold over the last 12 months. We expect that as we expand the acceptance footprint we will see similar growth over the next 12 months.” said Mark Austin, VP, Head of Product Management and Market Development, Mobile Business Unit, Visa Europe (Platinum Sponsors of the CMAs).

For the first time this year, there was an award open to all finalists – the Industry Choice Award. Voting was open to anyone who was willing to cast a vote. After a frenetic ten days voting, the winner with 33% of the vote was Isbank (Turkey).

Atkins said: “The quality of awards’ entries continues to improve each year, demonstrating that contactless is fast becoming a technology that brings advantages to citizens and businesses alike. Whether it’s to increase throughput, to reduce the amount of cash used by a firm or to encourage spending, more merchants are choosing to give contactless a go. And they’re being encouraged to do so by consumers who are rapidly recognising the benefits of the technology in terms of convenience and time saving.”

This year’s judges included Wendy Atkins, Contactless Intelligence; Paul Chamberlain, Association for Convenience Stores; Michel Barjansky, independent transport consultant; Mark Austin, Visa Europe; Kevin Farquharson, Smart Card Networking Forum; Samee Zafar, Edgar Dunn; John Berry, European Commission (Research & Innovative Transport Systems); Hervé Pierre, SIMalliance; and,Kristian T. Sørensen, Mobey Forum.

“The number of firms that now want to talk about what they are doing with contactless globally is encouraging for the industry, but it makes the judges’ job tougher every year,” added Atkins. “We’re grateful for the time everyone spent analysing the input in some very tough categories. There were some particularly strong entries in certain categories, such as Marketing Campaign and Customer Experience which meant some of the results were incredibly close.”