NMI’s Contactless Payments Tech Boosts UK Charity Donations

NMI, a commerce enablement company, implemented and installed contactless donation points in Bristol for a charity event, and raised 309 percent more money than they did a few years ago without them, according to a press release.

The company collaborated with Wallace & Gromit’s The Grand Appeal, a U.K. children’s hospital, and installed the machines along a popular sculpture trail in the city. Cashless payments are popular in the U.K., accounting for one in two in-store transactions and two out of five face-to-face Visa transactions.

The change happened quickly – numerous markets saw contactless usage go from single digits to more than 50 percent use within 18 to 24 months. It’s not as prevalent in the United States, however, as many card issuers don’t give customers the contactless option.

This could change soon, though, according to Daniel Sanford, a senior VP at Visa.

“We will soon start seeing the same contactless adoption trends emerging [in the U.S.] that we have seen in the rest of the world,” Sanford said. “But there need to be cards in the market to drive adoption.”

NMI’s Senior VP of Marketing Ingrid Anusic said contactless payment systems open up new streams of revenue, especially for charities.

“With people carrying less cash and contactless increasingly overtaking EMV chip card payments globally, it was of paramount importance to NMI to open up new revenue streams to charities like The Grand Appeal by making contactless technology accessible, [as it is] already used by our transportation and retail customers,” Anusic said.

Nicola Masters, director of The Grand Appeal, said that because contactless transactions overtook chip and PIN payments in the U.K., the collaboration made sense.

“We were delighted to partner with NMI for this project, and as a result, The Grand Appeal has received a huge amount of public donations throughout the trail, which just wouldn’t have been possible through more traditional donation methods,” Masters said.

Through 17 contactless donation points, the charity raised about $58,000.