Contactless payments in the UK: Everything you need to know

Will Apply Pay, Android Pay and contactless payments kill off cash?

Contactless payments at a glance

  • Contactless payment limit increased from £20 to £30 from 1 September 2015.
  • There are around 69 million contactless cards in circulation.
  • Whopping £2.5 billion spent in the UK using contactless in first half of year, according to the UK Cards Association.
  • Take a look at our Apple Pay vs Android Pay comparison for information on the UK release date and more.

Latest contactless payments news

02/09/15 – The upper threshold for contactless payments in the UK increased from £20 to £30 yesterday, although it might take a while for all merchants to update their equipment to accept that amount.

The shift upwards is in response to UK consumers’ appetite for spending using contactless methods. Indeed, the latest figures from the UK Cards Association state that £2.5 billion was spent using contactless methods in the first half of this year, with monthly spending up from £287 million per month in January 2015 to £567 a per month in June 2015. In just six months, UK consumers have spent more using contactless than they did in the whole of 2014.

“Contactless payments are fast, easy and secure. With more contactless cards in wallets than ever before and a growing number of retailers accepting contactless payments, we have seen a huge rise in the number of payments being made,” said Graham Peacop, CEO at the UK Cards Association.

“The growth in contactless payments shows people want to use contactless cards and increasing the limit gives customers even more opportunities to pay in this way.”

Some consumers remain concerned about fraud given how seamless a contactless payments transaction is thanks to lack of signature or PIN required. However, the UK Cards Association suggests that fraud levels are actually extremely low – less than a penny for every £100 spent.

Will Apple Pay and Android Pay kill off traditional payment methods?

Android Pay, a competitor to mobile payments systems like Apple Pay, was announced at the 2015 Google I/O developer conference back in May 2015, causing many to declare this the final… continue reading:-

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