Diversity of nominations and award
winners demonstrates global growth for
contactless

The global appetite for contactless technologies shows no sign of abating as the 2011 Contactless Intelligence Contactless Monkey Awards (CMA) honours retailer achievements across a wide range of sectors and countries throughout Europe and further afield.

Now in its fourth year, the Visa Europe-sponsored Contactless Monkey Awards has yet again attracted a record turnout, making it an important fixture in the contactless calendar.

This year’s CMA champions accepted their trophies at a gala dinner at Tower Bridge Hilton, London, on April 14, 2011. The winners are: In restaurant dining – McDonald’s (UK); High throughput beverage – Insomnia Coffee (Ireland); High throughput food – EAT (UK); Competitive advantage through technology – McDonald’s (UK); On the High Street – Vivotech (Kuwait); Health/Lifestyle/Entertainment – city of Nice (France); Public concern – NXP for National ID card (Germany); Transportation – Veolia, Nice (France); Trailblazing and innovation – Clear2Pay.

In addition, Visa Europe presented its Visa payWave award for Best Customer Experience to EAT, while Will Judge from Transport for London (TfL) won the Visa payWave Business Leader prize.

Lewis Nolan, vice president, market development for Visa payWave at Visa Europe, said: “We are very proud to sponsor the Contactless Monkey Awards for a fourth year. 2011 is seeing significant growth of contactless technology across many European markets, and it is fantastic to see this reflected in the diversity of nominations and award winners.

“With close to 20 million contactless
enabled Visa cards now in circulation
across Europe and over 125,000
acceptance locations we will continue
to see even greater growth as
contactless moves into the mainstream.

“I am particularly pleased to recognise the achievement of both EAT, who as one of our original contactless launch participants has continued to provide the best in customer payment experience, and of Will Judge from TfL whose vision and determination against a range of odds has brought us to the brink of what will be an amazing breakthrough in the way we pay for public transport journeys across London and beyond.”

This year’s judges included Wendy Atkins, Contactless Intelligence; Nav Bains, GSMA; Paul Chamberlain, Association for Convenience Stores; Michel Barjansky, independent transport consultant; Lewis Nolan, Visa Europe; Kevin Farquharson, Smart Card Networking Forum; and Samee Zafar, Edgar Dunn.