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Contactless card payments in the UK may soon lose their ceiling altogether, with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) proposing that banks and payment providers be given discretion to raise—or remove—the current £100 limit.
Unlimited contactless limit?
The move would align cards more closely with mobile wallets, which already allow unrestricted transactions, and accelerate the steady decline of the four-digit PIN in everyday retail.
Since their introduction in 2007 with a £10 cap, contactless payments have expanded rapidly.
Successive increases, most recently to £100 in October 2021, have made tapping a card routine for supermarket shops, restaurant bills and other mid-sized purchases.
Yet every rise has been met with warnings about fraud exposure. The FCA has emphasised that card issuers would shoulder liability for unauthorised transactions and would restrict higher-value taps to low-risk environments.
Public Opinion
Public opinion, however, remains wary.
In the FCA’s consultation, 78 per cent of consumers opposed further increases, suggesting a broad comfort with today’s limit.
For small businesses, the reaction is more nuanced.
George Holmes, Managing Director at Aurora Capital, notes that most SMEs already see the £100 threshold as sufficient: “Removing it could potentially lift average spend and encourage bigger sales, but it also introduces new concerns.”
Merchants may be required to update terminal software or settings if limits change, incurring technical and compliance costs.
While relatively modest, these adjustments can strain smaller retailers without in-house expertise. Holmes argues that “consumer choice must remain front and centre”, suggesting that enabling customers to set their own spending caps could strike the right balance.
The FCA insists that any transition would be gradual.
Yet if implemented, the reforms would mark a significant shift in the payments landscape—further embedding contactless as Britain’s default method of payment while testing the appetite of both consumers and merchants for unlimited convenience.
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