Contactless card payments have been on the increase in the past twelve months particularly since the limit increased from £20 to £30 in September 2015- but trust is still a major issue, according to a new poll.
The UK Cards Association confirmed that consumers spent over £7.5bn through over one billion completed transactions in 2015.
Future Thinking, the business intelligence research consultancy and Toluna carried out an online survey and analysed the results of over 2300 respondents across the UK, asking consumers about their attitudes towards contactless payments.
Survey question:
Which of these describes your attitude to contactless payment (where you can touch your payment card to the terminal to immediately debit amounts less than £30) …….
• I pay using Contactless and hope the limit keeps going up
• I pay by Contactless but think £30 is the maximum it should be
• I never pay by Contactless as I don’t trust it
• I don’t pay by Contactless as my card(s) aren’t enabled
• I don’t pay by Contactless as I don’t shop anywhere that accepts it
• I don’t even know if my card(s) are contactless
Highlights of the 2,315 people taking part in the survey include:
• 31% of respondents never pay by Contactless as they don’t trust it
• 14% don’t know if their cards are contactless
• Over 1 in 4 (27%) think £30 is the maximum amount contactless payments should be
• 35% of males never pay by Contactless as they don’t trust it compared to 29% of females
• Age plays a key role in usage. 22% of under 35’s never pay by Contactless as they don’t trust it compared to 43% of over 55’s.
Noreen Kinsey, Senior Research Director at Future Thinking comments: “It is clear from recent figures that there has been a huge increase in the number of purchases using contactless technology. This reflects consumer desires for quicker payment methods and increased convenience. As with all new technologies there is still some reluctance towards this technology, particularly amongst older age groups, who may be further isolated as we move towards mobile pay and other tech-enabled purchase solutions.”