Definitely slower to use a card or your phone in London.

I remember when they first allowed card use more than a decade ago and it broke the flow quite a bit at rush hour as people were so used to the Oyster card's timing that they'd run into the back of people using cards or people using cards would run into the gate as it had not opened as quickly as they were used to. Quite a bit of commentary around it during that time:

https://www.reddit.com/r/london/comments/2zc104/that_extra_s...

Maybe I am just plainly wrong or encountered some specific stations, but this does not feel true from my experience.

During my last visit to London (in 2025), it felt noticeably slower than even NYC subway tap-to-pay.

Suica is a whole other beast that isn't even in the same category of speed. It genuinely feels sub-200ms instantaneous.