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Finally. UK is so far behind on payment technology, again. It took years for contactless to even appear in the UK at all while rest of Europe already had it. It

Finally. UK is so far behind on payment technology, again. It took years for contactless to even appear in the UK at all while rest of Europe already had it. It's the same now - while in Europe I can pay a transaction for any amount using contactless, it just needs a pin - I literally just paid a €2000 hotel bill with my British credit card by just tapping it on the terminal, I just had to type in the pin, simple as that. But in the UK? Anything over £100 you have to put the card in. It's stupid.

pndy 1y ago
I was talking with my friend who's living in the middle of East Midlands and she was surprised that we have a micropayments platform here in Poland. She left before it become a common thing to pay for variety of goods physical or virtual with 6-digits temporary codes generated by banking app. I guess there's nothing similar like this in the UK? She couldn't tell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blik?useskin=vector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blik?useskin=vector
- gambiting 1y ago
  Nope, there isn't. There used to be a system pioneered by Barclays where you could pay anyone else just using their phone number, but it got completely switched off few years ago due to "low adoption"
mytailorisrich 1y ago
"It just needs a pin"... Ah so not really contactless anymore, then. Unlimited really contactless transactions are a recipe for disaster and they obviously know it if they require the PIN.
- gambiting 1y ago
  Yes, but the point is that currently in the UK you can't do a contactless transaction over £100, pin or no pin. The same transactions are allowed in the rest of Europe no problem. The difference is only in having to insert the card into the terminal, which maybe doesn't sound like a big deal but a lot of stores put themselves in a stupid position where they have a small contactless terminal(with a pin pad!) attached in a way where it's easy to access next to the till, but if you spend more than £100 the cashier then has to dig out another terminal from under their station that has a slot. It's like trying to pay with a magnetic slot-only card all over again - maybe it's not a big deal but it adds friction where it doesn't need to exist, in France, Germany, Poland, Spain(I assume in all of EU at this point) you just tap your card no matter the transaction value, type in your pin if needed and that's it.

pndy 1y ago

I was talking with my friend who's living in the middle of East Midlands and she was surprised that we have a micropayments platform here in Poland. She left before it become a common thing to pay for variety of goods physical or virtual with 6-digits temporary codes generated by banking app. I guess there's nothing similar like this in the UK? She couldn't tell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blik?useskin=vector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blik?useskin=vector

gambiting 1y ago
Nope, there isn't. There used to be a system pioneered by Barclays where you could pay anyone else just using their phone number, but it got completely switched off few years ago due to "low adoption"

mytailorisrich 1y ago

"It just needs a pin"... Ah so not really contactless anymore, then. Unlimited really contactless transactions are a recipe for disaster and they obviously know it if they require the PIN.

gambiting 1y ago
Yes, but the point is that currently in the UK you can't do a contactless transaction over £100, pin or no pin. The same transactions are allowed in the rest of Europe no problem. The difference is only in having to insert the card into the terminal, which maybe doesn't sound like a big deal but a lot of stores put themselves in a stupid position where they have a small contactless terminal(with a pin pad!) attached in a way where it's easy to access next to the till, but if you spend more than £100 the cashier then has to dig out another terminal from under their station that has a slot. It's like trying to pay with a magnetic slot-only card all over again - maybe it's not a big deal but it adds friction where it doesn't need to exist, in France, Germany, Poland, Spain(I assume in all of EU at this point) you just tap your card no matter the transaction value, type in your pin if needed and that's it.