Contactless transaction limit boosted after rise in spending

The spending limit on contactless card transactions will increase to £30 in September due to a huge rise in the number of people using contactless cards.

The UK Cards association has announced plans to raise the amount consumers can pay by touching their credit or debit card to a card reader without entering a PIN, the BBC reported last week. The limit per transaction is currently £20.

When the technology was first launched in 2007, the limit was only £10.

Contactless card transactions have more than tripled from a total of £653 in 2013 to £2.32bn last year.

One reason for the leap is the introduction of contactless card payments to London’s transport network in September 2014. Customers used contactless cards on 319 million occasions in 2014, with 41 million of those transactions occurring on a London bus or tube.

Barclaycard said contactless cards had been most popular in London, where 30 per cent of all transactions below £20 were contactless.

In Leeds, 27 per cent of transactions were contactless, and in Cambridge the figure was 15 per cent.

There are currently plans to introduce the payment technology to transport systems in other cities, such as Manchester.

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