Money

How 93.4% of all shop transactions are now contactless


  • New report shows 80% of 85 to 95-year-olds paid with contactless in 2023
  • 93% of in-store card payments up to £100 were made with contactless in 2023



More over-65s than ever before are using contactless for payments, data suggests.

Today, 80 per cent of 85 to 95-year-olds pay with contactless, a new report from Barclaycard shows. 

For the third year in a row, the fastest growth for contactless usage was among the over 65s.

A record 93.4 per cent of all in-store card transactions up to £100 were made with ‘touch and pay’ in 2023, cementing it as the UK’s most popular payment method.

Customers are spending more on average too, the report shows. 

The average spend per customer last year, was £3,623 – up 8.9 per cent annually as customers bought more expensive items more frequently. The average purchase cost £15.69 – up 3.8 per cent on last year.

When it comes to payments over £100, chip and pin is the preferred way of paying across all age demographics, followed by cash. 

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Younger customers prefer to use mobile payments with a quarter of 18-34-year-olds preferring to use their phone. 

Mobile payments do not have an upper limit for contactless through two-factor authentication.

By contrast, just 3 per cent of over-75s prefer a mobile payment over using a physical card. 

Some younger shoppers now choose not to bring their card at all when leaving the house. 

More than one in five of those aged 18-34 regularly leave their wallet behind when out shopping in favour of paying with their smartphone.

A knock on effect of the increased use of contactless payments is that nearly one fifth of Britons admit they also have trouble remembering their PIN when prompted.

Motoring was the category which saw contactless payments surge the most in 2023, up 28.8 per cent since 2022, followed by electronics – which saw a 19.9 per cent jump in contactless spend growth in 2023 compared to 2022. 

Barclays launched the UK’s first contactless card, the ‘Barclaycard OnePulse’, in September 2007.

At that time, the spending limit per payment was just £10. It was first rolled out across approximately 22,000 payment terminals in the TfL network and in around 6,000 retailers.

The first retailers to accept contactless were coffee shops and fast food outlets including EAT and Pret A Manger. 

By 2013, annual contactless transactions reached £1billion for the first time and the following year saw a further expansion as TfL began accepting contactless cards at station barriers, allowing customers to skip queues at ticket machines.

Ten years after launching, in 2017 – three in five Britons were choosing to pay with contactless, amounting to £60billion spent in total. 

By 2020, 88.6 per cent of all eligible payments in the UK were contactless, with uptake boosted by Covid restrictions and the contactless limit increasing from £30 to £45.

Karen Johnson, head of retail at Barclays said: ‘Since we rolled out contactless payments to the UK in 2007, it has firmly cemented itself as the UK’s favourite payment method, thanks to its speed and convenience.

‘In 2024, we expect to see a greater shift to payments using mobile wallets, as more bricks-and-mortar business integrate the technology into their customer experience.’

Contactless payments: A history

2007: Barclays launches the Barclaycard OnePulse card. The UK’s first contactless card. The spending limit per transaction is initially set at £10

2010: The Contactless payment limit increases from £10 to £15

2011: The first mobile payment device enters the UK, letting users make payments by tapping their phone on a contactless payment reader

2012: The contactless payment limit rises from £15 to £20. Barclays introduces PayBand, the UK’s first wearable payment device

2013: Annual contactless transactions reach £1billion for the first time

2014: Barclays works with TfL on the second phase of introducing contactless to London’s travel network by aiding the evolution of the yellow Oyster card readers to enable them to read contactless cards

2015: The spending limit per transaction rises from £20 to £30. Barclaycard creates the nation’s first payments fashion wearables.

2020: UK contactless limit increases from to £45

2021: UK contactless limit increases to £100 on 15 October

2022: Contactless spending jumps 49.7 per cent, as Britons embrace the £100 limit

2023: Over 80 per cent of 85–95-year-olds now pay with contactless

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