Visa Europe said contactless payments in the UK, including Apple Pay, make up 1 in 7 of face-to-face transactions by its cardholders, up from 1 in 25 a year earlier.

Across Europe, contactless transactions in the year to September 2015 reached 1.7 billion. The UK figure runs up to October 2015.

However, payments made via mobile devices are still a small part of total contactless traffic. While Apple Pay was launched in the UK in July last year, the country still awaits the launch by other high profile rivals including Samsung and Google’s Android Pay.

Nevertheless contactless payments via credit and debit card have grown rapidly  and were partly behind Visa Europe reporting revenue of €2.31 billion in the year to 30 June, an increase of 25 per cent. The card giant says it is seeing a switch by users from using cash to contactless, which enables payments without signature or PINs.

Visa Europe returned €739 million to its member-shareholders in the form of rebates and joint-investment activities in 2015. Visa Inc announced plans to buy Visa Europe for up to €21.2 billion in November 2015.