Barclaycard, the payments provider that sees almost half of the nation’s credit and debit card transactions and provides the technology to power over 150,000 terminals across the UK retail sector will be rolling out the deployment of the new £45 contactless limit across UK retailers from the 1st of April 2020. The contactless limit increase will help prevent the spread of the Coronavirus by limiting the need to touch card readers or handle cash.
Prioritising essential retail
For now deployment will be prioritised for retailers in key sectors, including grocery & supermarket stores, bakeries, pharmacies and petrol service stations. Barclaycard will be supporting the deployment of the higher contactless limit to other merchants in due course. This shows that the higher limit is likely to stick around in the future.
“It’s more important than ever for merchants and their customers to be mindful of their collective health and safety. We are proud to be taking a leadership position in the UK by commencing the deployment of a higher contactless threshold. By supporting the ability of customers to spend up to £45 via contactless, we are playing a part in helping UK consumers to pay safely and securely in these challenging times”.
– Rob Cameron, CEO, Barclaycard Payments
The future of payment technology
The future of payments both online and offline has quite recently become a hot topic. With such vital changes being put in place at such a a rapid rate, we can see how COVID-19 could affect the implementation of future technology and further the digitisation of things like money. Sudden epidemics also show us how newer technologies may be missing key features that will help us through unexpected situations like the Coronavirus which is effecting people on a global scale. Amazon’s speculated fingerprint scanner for example, could be a questionable piece of equipment when we’re all tying to avoid touching equipment unnecessarily.
