Contactless spending soars (and so does fraud)

The amount of money stolen from UK contactless cards and mobile devices has shot up. Almost £7 million was taken in 2016, compared to £2.8 million in 2015, according to Financial Fraud Action UK. In the same period, contactless spending rose from £7.75 billion to £25.2 billion.

Earlier this week it emerged that over half of contactless payment terminals in the UK are now able to take Apple Pay transactions of any value, including Waitrose and Sainsbury's and Pizza Express and Nando’s.

They had previously been restricted to £30, the default upper limit for contactless card transactions. Apple's Touch ID approval system on iPhones and iPads provides the extra security to go beyond that. ‘Of any value’ might be a little misleading, however. It seems that there is still a limit, but not one that would impact upon the majority of purchases (a figure of £6,000-£7,000 has been mentioned by retailers).