DANSKE Bank has become one of the first banks to announce that its personal customers will have the flexibility to choose their own contactless transaction limits up to the newly increased £100 national limit for contactless purchases.
New rules mean bank customers will be able to spend up to £100 per contactless transaction and all current cards which have contactless functionality will have this limit increased automatically.
But Danske has introduced a new option for personal customers to choose their own contactless transaction limit with any whole number from £0 up to the maximum of £100.
This can be done through itsMobile 3.0 app, or by contacting the bank at a branch or via its customer direct team.
Vicki Hassan, operations director at Danske Bank, said: “There has been a noticeable rise in the number and value of contactless transactions in recent years, so we welcome today’s increase in the contactless limit and hope it has the desired effect in helping to boost spending across the economy.
“But we also believe it is important that our customers have choice, so have addressed concerns that were raised about the new higher limit by giving personal customers the flexibility to set their own limits.”
In April 2020 a joint industry decision was made to raise the individual contactless purchase limit from £30 to £45 as part of the national Covid response strategy.
The national increase in contactless limits was designed to reduce the need for contact with PIN entry keypads at point of sale.
Then Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a further rise to £100 earlier this year, saying the contactless limit increase would “make it easier than ever before for people to pay for their shopping, providing a welcome boost to retail”.
Recent statistics from UK Finance show the number of contactless payments in the UK increased by 12 per cent last year to 9.6 billion payments and that contactless payments accounted for more than a quarter of all UK payments.
In the last four years, contactless payments have gone from being just 7 per cent of all payments in the UK to 27 per cent.
