Police chief says safer to keep contactless cap at £30

The contactless card payment limit should stay at £30 to prevent a rise in card fraud, the head of the City of London police said.

The maximum contactless payment went up from £20 to £30 two years ago but Commissioner Ian Dyson said current concerns over contactless technology meant it was safer to keep the cap in place for now. Today marks 10 years since the launch of contactless.

“I would advise against increasing it for the moment because the losses could be quite significant,” he said. “At some point the technology will change and you can raise the limit. The cap is there for sound reasons.”

A poll last month found that more than half of retailers wanted the contactless limit increased.

The average supermarket shop is £25, which has influenced the £30 limit on the card. The average contactless card payment is around £8 or £9.

Regulators have been forced to tackle the technology after it emerged some merchants didn’t download payment data to the bank until the end of the day, opening the door for fraud.

However, the technology is still relatively safe — about 2.7p in every £100 that was spent was lost to contactless fraud last year.

“I am not advocating a return to waiting five days for payments to clear but with that convenience the public must accept that there is a risk involved,” Dyson added.