The government has announced that as of the 15th of October the contactless payment limit will increase from £45 per single transaction to £100 per single transaction, more than doubling the current spending limit. This change has come not long after the contactless payments were raised from £35 to £45 pounds at the beginning of the pandemic.
These decisions are being made due to the changing behaviours of the UK shoppers. Throughout the pandemic, cash use plummeted with the fear of exchanging coins and notes, while shoppers were also wary about handling chip and pin terminals. This has resulted many UK shoppers opting for contactless as their preferred payment method.
This has been showing as last August during the ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme where contactless payments hit a monthly high of £8.4 billion spent on credit and debit cards. This is further supported as UK Finance stated, “Contactless payments accounted for 49% of all credit card and debit card transactions in May”.
The UK finance minister Rishi Sunak said: “Increasing the contactless limit will make it easier than ever to pay safely and securely – whether that’s at the local shops or your favourite pub and restaurant. As people get back to the high street, millions of payments will made be simpler, providing a welcome boost for retailers and shoppers.”
As of the 15th of October, some retailers will be able to use this technology, however not all retailers will have this function available at launch. “Given the number of terminals which will need to be updated to accept the new limit, it will take some time to be introduced across all retailers,” UK Finance said in a statement.
Despite this making contactless shopping more convenient, will this bring doubts to UK shoppers over their transaction security? Laura Suter, the head of personal finance at the investment firm AJ Bell, identified 2 potential issues with the introduction of such a high contactless limit. Bell said “First, it is a thief’s dream, as they can take far more of your money in each transaction if you card is lost or stolen,” she said. “Second, there is a risk for those who are in debt getting further into debt. The easier a card transaction is the less the consumer is actively thinking about how much they are spending, meaning it’s easier to rack up larger bills on a credit card.”
What could this increased contactless payment do for fully automated vending shopping?
With the contactless payments increasing up to £100, we at Vending by JSR believe this is another step closer to fully automated retailing becoming the future of UK shopping. We have already seen the development of how our customers utilise our vending technology to create fully automated farm shops consisting solely of locker vending machines. With the customer now able to use up to £100 in their contactless transactions, this now creates the possibility of customers completing large weekly shops at one of these vending stores.
With UK shoppers no longer being limited to only purchasing £45 worth of products, customers using our technology are free to purchase all their weekly essentials they usually would need to get from a supermarket, straight from our vending machines. All paid for with the tap of one card. Further enhancing the quick, simple and fully automated shopping experience that customers already love about our technology.