Banks keep £100 contactless limit despite new powers
Britain’s banks will not be lifting the £100 cap on contactless payments despite the regulator giving them the power to do so, citing low demand.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) lifted the cap on Thursday, leaving it up to banks to increase their own limits – although none of the UK’s biggest banks have decided to do so.
The FCA said it was giving more power to banks to set limits – provided they have sufficient fraud prevention – because consumers are flooding to contactless as the go-to way to make purchases.
David Geale, the watchdog’s chief executive, had said: “Contactless is people’s favoured way to pay. We want to make sure our rules provide flexibility for the future, and choice for both firms and consumers.”
But UK Finance, the banking lobby group, has said the UK’s sector leaders have opted to keep their limits in place because of a lack of widespread consumer demand.
Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Nationwide, NatWest and Santander are among the high street banks which have declined to change their rules, with the industry heavyweights joined by online challenger Monzo in keeping the £100 cap in place.
Other banks in the online-only sector – Revolut and Starling – are yet to confirm whether they will be lifting their caps.
The FCA had said that lifting the cap, which was in place to protect consumers from fraud, would incentivise banks to increase their fraud prevention to qualify for the ability to remove the cap.
Average contactless spend just £18
Contactless is Brits’ favourite way to make payments, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC), with 67 per cent of all credit card and 76 per cent of all debit card transactions made this way.
UK consumers spent as much as £311bn using contactless cards in 2025, across 19.2bn payments.
But the average amount of contactless transactions is just £18, the BRC said.
Before the cap removal came into force, the BRC’s director of business and regulation, Tom Ironside, had questioned whether banks would jump on the opportunity to change their limits.
He said: “It may take some time before shoppers can take advantage of the new limits.
“While the overarching rules have changed, it is unclear how long it will take for individual banks to change their policies around contactless payment limits.”
Brits were already able to spend above £100 on their smartphones using Apple and Google pay, with the limit applying only to contactless payments made with physical cards.