May have nothing to do with it but paying with CC details pretty much always has some traceable chain to the person who is gaining from the fraudulent activity. Contactless payment does not. Therefore a contactless scam could yield higher gains with lower risk than traditional cc fraud, and this poses a huge risk to any payment providers.
I'd tend to somewhat agree, but differ in what I think the big risk is - your cell phone has an internet connection, and a hacker in $foreignCountry can get to it..
The scope of risks are so significantly larger than the traditional "people who can place their hands on your wallet, or read the number while you have it in the open"...