The urge to grab a quick snack or refreshment no longer comes with a jingling pocket full of coins or a stash of cash; more and more people are pulling out a credit card or mobile phone for their quick fix.

That’s music to the ears of Malvern’s cashless technology pioneers at USA Technologies, who commissioned a recent study that found cashless usage at 100,000 vending machines using its systems jumped 5 percent to 37 percent this year, compared to last year, and cashless buyers doled out 32 percent more money for each purchase.

“We believe that the results of our 2015 Knowledge Base Study demonstrate the industry’s acceptance of cashless and the revenue potential for the vending and unattended markets,” Vice President of Deployment Services Jim Turner said in a Vending Times report. “… We believe this is the year for many operators to go 100 percent cashless.”

The hot trend also generated a 28 percent increase in average annual cashless sales per terminal. And with all aspects of mobile payments through service like Apple Pay and Google Wallet now in place — from financial institutions to merchants and consumers, plus all the technologies in between — consulting firm Deloitte has ventured a guess that 2015 will be a turning point in the mass acceptance of contactless mobile payments, the article stated.

Read more about the cashless vending study and its implications in Vending Times here.