Mobile contactless payments are beginning to take off in the UK with a 336 per cent year-on-year rise in transaction value during H1, payment processing company Worldpay said.

The company’s statistics for the first six months of 2017 showed transactions in the country totaled £370 million. However, it added the payment method only accounted for 2 per cent of all transactions made in retail outlets in the January to June period.

Adoption of mobile payments has been slow in the UK, and in Europe generally, with the transaction method struggling against contactless cards, chip and PIN and cash payments.

Worldpay pointed to the launches of Android Pay in May 2016 and Samsung Pay earlier this year as beginning to have an impact on its figures. Apple Pay launched its service in July 2015.

In a statement, Worldpay CMO James Frost said: “Mobile spending has shaken off the novelty tag and is breaking its own spending records virtually every month.”

“Granted there’s still some way to go before we start cutting up our cards and chucking away our wallets, but it’s easy to see why everyone from start-ups to tech giants is eager to have a stake in the technology.”