By Tom Phillips

The value of the average contactless payment made in the UK has risen by 30 per cent since the country increased its contactless spending limit from £45 (US$59) to £100 (US$132) in October last year, according to figures from UK Finance.

The figures show that the average spend per contactless payment in the UK rose from £11.86 (US$15.63) in September to £12.27 (US$16.17) in October, then £13.57 (US$17.88) in November and reached £15.30 (US$20.16).in December.

“For 2021 as a whole, the card spending data shows a total of 13.1bn contactless payments were made in the year — equivalent to 415 transactions every second. This is up 36 per cent compared with 2020 and 52 per cent higher than pre-pandemic levels in 2019,” UK Finance’s Card Spending update reports.

“The total value of contactless transactions in 2021 also increased, reaching £165.9bn. This is 46 per cent higher than in 2020 and 106 per cent more than 2019.

“The proportion of card payments that were contactless continued to increase in December 2021 and reached its highest recorded level, accounting for 69 per cent of all debit card transactions and 56% of all credit card transactions.”