RBR’s latest cards research, Global Payment Cards Data and Forecasts to 2022, reveals that the number of card-accepting merchant outlets rose by an impressive 7 million in 2016 to 61 million. Double digit growth was recorded across Asia-Pacific, central and eastern Europe and the Middle East and Africa. Despite recent strong growth, all three regions continue to be underserved in terms of card acceptance and are expected to remain the engines of global growth, driving the total number of outlets worldwide to 85 million by 2022.

According to RBR’s report, regulatory factors are playing an increasingly important role in expanding card-acceptance networks. In Kazakhstan, legislation requiring all merchants to accept card payments came into force in 2016, contributing to the 50% growth in outlets. Meanwhile, in India, growth in cardaccepting merchants trebled to 45% as a result of caps on EFTPOS terminal charges and the removal of terminal taxes by the central government.