When contactless card payments arrived in the UK in 2007, the idea was modest. A £10 cap for each transaction made sense. It was for a sandwich, a bus fare; the small, routine exchanges of daily life. It was convenience, not collapse.

We have moved far from that modesty. Limits to how much can be spent contactlessly in one card transaction have risen – it’s been £100 since the pandemic. The tap-and-go habit has spread from cards to phones and watches. The payments industry is now even discussing removing the ceiling on contactless card payments to bring them in line with smartphone wallets.

Do not be fooled by talk of liberation. Removing the limit is not merely a technical tweak; it is a behavioural experiment on a national scale. Contactless is brilliant because it is invisible. But wh

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