by One of the 'good' things to come out of the 'Covid era' : 
'The upper limit for contactless card payments is soon set to increase by more than double, from £45 to £100'
After Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced the move in his March Budget speech, UK Finance has now announced an exact date for the change, which will be introduced for the first time next week, reports the Sun.
This will be the second time in two years the touch-and-go limit will have been raised, after contactless payments were first introduced in 2007 but capped at £10, then raised to £20 in 2012 and to £30 in 2015.
he changes were initially made for increasing convenience as consumer trust in the contactless system grew - but the third leap in the trust-and-go limit, to a £45 cap, came at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.
An increasingly hygiene-conscious public accelerated a move away from cash, with shoppers often being encouraged to use contactless in many stores to reduce close contact between staff and customers.
Nearly two-thirds of all debit card transactions are now made via tap-and-go technology.
And it seems most of us are unlikely to ever go back to using chip-and-pin payment for small services, and with the cashless payment cap set to rise next week.
UK Finance has confirmed the rise will happen next week, on Friday, October 15.
As of Friday, shoppers will be able to tap their card or smartphone on a card reader to make a payment of up to £100.
Due to the huge popularity of the system, customers can now use contactless to pay for most services, including supermarkets, high street retailers and independents, restaurants, buses, the London Underground and even parking metres.
From January 2020 every bank-issued payment terminal in the UK is now capable of accepting contactless payments.
Unlike contactless card payments, for Apple Pay - which supports most major credit and debit card providers including Visa, MasterCard and American Express - there is already no contactless limit.
You need an Apple device to use Apple Pay, which works by uploading your card details to your iPhone or Apple Watch then tapping it like a contactless card, using authentication to confirm the payment.
Google Pay, or GPay, works in a similar way, although you have to download the app to your Android phone.
Rishi Sunak has said he hopes the contactless limit increase "will make it easier than ever before for people to pay for their shopping, providing a welcome boost to retail that will protect jobs and drive growth across the capital."
by 
61-BLUES
