You’ll be able to make contactless payments up to £30 from September

Contactless card payments are a bit of a mixed bag. The lack of PIN security is enough to make some people wary of it, but holding your card on a sensor is ever so slightly easier than sticking your card into the reader. If you are a fan, the £20 upper limit is a bit of a bind, so you’ll be happy to hear it’s going up to £30.

The UK Cards Association has announced that from the 1st September you’ll be able to use contactless to pay for transactions valued up to £30 without having to enter a PIN. Spend any more than that and sadly you’ll have to enter your PIN like some sort of mid ’00s peasant.

The amount of money being spent through contactless payment tripled last year, rising to £2.32 billion from £653 million in 2013. According to the BBC the introduction of contactless payments on London pubic transport has helped the uptake of the technology, and it’s also becoming popular as an alternative to cash.

It might not be a lot, but any sort of incentive for people to take up contactless payment is always a good thing. It would be nice if there was a big more security involved, though.

Tom Pritchard