As in other regions, there are many pilots and "early stage rollouts" of contactless payments under way in Europe. However there are also some important differences between the characteristics of these schemes and those in other parts of the world, driven by the importance of debit in Europe, the widespread deployment of chip and PIN, and the impending legislation caused by the Payment Services Directive. This paper looks at some of these differences and the way they are affecting the spread of contactless payments in Europe.