£100 contactless card limit to be lifted

Millions of people will be able to set their own contactless card payment limits or even have no limit at all, a regulator has confirmed.

Banks and card providers will be given the power, from March, to set a maximum – or unlimited – single payment amount without the need to enter a four-digit PIN.

But they are also being encouraged by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to allow cardholders to set their own individual limits, or switch off contactless entirely. Some banks already offer this function.

The move comes despite the FCA’s own survey showing little appetite among consumers and industry respondents for a change from the current £100 limit on contactless cards.

The FCA said it did not expect card providers to make immediate changes to the current limit from March, but they had the flexibility to do so.

When contactless card payments were introduced in 2007, the transaction limit was set at £10. The limit was raised gradually, to £15 in 2010, to £20 in 2012, then to £30 in 2015, before the Covid pandemic prompted a jump to £45 in 2020, then to £100 in October 2021.

While contactless cards currently have a £100 payment limit, anyone using their smartphone to pay can spend any amount without the need for a PIN.

In-built security features, such as thumbprints and face ID, provide greater protection.

But concerns have been raised about cards becoming more attractive to thieves and fraudsters, when high-value payments can be made with a tap of a card.

Various protections are already in place, such as a prompt to enter a PIN after a series of consecutive contactless transactions are made.

Consumers would still get their money back if it was stolen by fraudsters, according to David Geale, executive director of payments and digital finance at the FCA.

“Contactless is people’s favoured way to pay,” he said.

Speaking on the BBC’s Today programme, Mr Geale said while the system works well, rigid limits could “slow things down”.

“So what we want to do is give banks and payment firms greater flexibility to set their own approach to contactless payment, where they see low risk of fraud,” he said.

In practice, he said that means banks and payment companies could choose a limit based on their customers.

“But what we’re really encouraging is that they’ll open up that flexibility for customers to set their own limits,” he added.

Other countries, such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand allow industry to set contactless card limits.

Jana Mackintosh, managing director of payments and innovation at UK Finance, which represents banks, said: “Any changes made in the future will be done carefully and ensure strong security and fraud controls remain in place.”

The FCA’s own survey on changing the rules, released during consultation, showed that 78% of consumers who responded said they did not want any change to the current limits.

Consumers and academics have suggested that the extra convenience of unlimited contactless payment limits could also lead to shoppers spending without thinking.

This is said to be a particular issue with credit cards, when people are spending borrowed money and accumulating debt.

Financial abuse charities have also warned that unlimited contactless spending could give abusers free access to drain a survivor’s bank account with no checks or alerts.

They also worry it could also hasten the shift towards a cashless society, despite notes and coins being a lifeline to many financial abuse survivors whose card transactions are monitored online by their abusers.

One policy to help vulnerable customers access cash, as bank branches close, is the development of shared banking hubs.

Cash Access UK, the organisation set up to protect access to cash across the UK, announced the official opening of its 200th banking hub in Billericay, Essex, on Friday.

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