Visa Europe has predicted that “at least one third” of all the continent’s consumers will be using its V.me digital wallet by 2020.

V.me enables users to make payments via their smartphones, tablets, PCs or laptops. The prediction was mentioned during Visa’s annual results announcement.

Currently the wallet only enables online transactions although Visa’s plan is to enable V.me payments in locations such as retailers or P2P payments during 2013.

In addition, the company predicted there will be 40 issuers offering mobile contactless services in 2013 and by the end of the year around 80 different type of smartphone will be certified for use with Visa’s payWave point-of-sale technology.

Contactless transactions in Europe quadrupled in 2012, says Visa, and it expects the same to happen this year.

The credit card giant will launch V.me commercially in the UK, France and Spain during 2013, following a trial in the same markets that started in autumn 2012.

Visa Europe’s 2020 prediction foresees a major take-up for its digital wallet, although this is not the first time that the company has taken a bullish view of the market. CEO Peter Ayliffe predicted in 2012 that over half of Visa’s card transactions will be carried out via a mobile device by 2020.

Visa Europe announced in its results that customer spend on its debit cards exceeded EUR1 trillion for the first time. The results cover the year ending 30 September 2012.
Total spend by Visa cardholders grew by 8 percent to EUR1.3 trillion, a figure underpinned by a 16 percent growth in e-commerce, the fastest growing part of the credit card giant’s business.

Separately, Visa has approved RIM’s secure element manager, a solution for mobile operators to manage the credentials on SIM cards installed in NFC devices. The solution is currently used by the Canadian operator jv called EnStream.