Banks in Qatar are raising the contactless transaction limit from 100 riyals (US$27.46) to 300 riyals (US$82.39), in a bid to limit the spread of Covid-19. “For contactless purchases up to QAR 300 at selected POS terminals, and up to QAR 1,500 (US$411.97) cumulative at any merchant globally, no PIN entry is required,” QNB says. […]

The European Banking Authority has issued a statement urging the European payments industry to increase contactless transaction limits to €50 (US$54.97). “Well-functioning payment services are vital at this time, and contactless payments should be stepped up to the threshold allowed under EU law,” the EBA says. The EBA has “noted the importance of orderly payments

Countries around the world are increasing the contactless transaction limit in a bid to combat the spread of Covid-19. NFCW has collated into one table the increases for each country and will keep it up to date during the crisis. The countries which have announced increases to date are Albania, Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus,

Mastercard is now working with 29 countries across Europe and central Asia to implement increases to their contactless payment transaction limit, the payments network says. The countries are Albania, Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Tajikistan,

PARTNER NEWS: ST is to host a webinar on designing robust, powerful and effective NFC readers for industrial, automotive, consumer and payment applications on 31 March. “During this one-hour webinar, you will learn how the advanced features of the latest generation of NFC reader ICs will ease your NFC design,” ST says. “We will highlight

KNOWLEDGE CENTRE: The opening session of the Wearable Payment Summit 2020, NFCW’s first online conference, is now available to watch free of charge in our Knowledge Centre. NFCW’s editor, Sarah Clark, is joined for this opening panel discussion by: Wayne Leung, CEO of wearable payment innovator Tappy Technologies, in Canada Vijin Venugopalan, head of Mastercard

The spending limit for contactless card payments in the UK is being increased from £30 (US$35.33) to £45 (US$52.99), UK Finance has announced. The new spending limit will begin to roll out from 1 April 2020. Read the rest of UK raises contactless transaction limit by 50% at NFCW.

“Coronavirus concerns have pushed consumers across Germany to make the switch to using contactless payments for the first time,” The Local.de reports. “More than half of payments currently being made by card are contactless, compared with 35% before the coronavirus crisis hit, according to the German Credit Agency (DK),” the publication says. “Germany has remained

The Chengyang District of the city of Qingdao has become the first in China to use a new WeChat service to issue government vouchers directly to residents’ mobile phones, in a bid to boost consumer spending as the Chinese economy begins to recover from Covid-19. A total of RMB 10m (US$1.41m) is being distributed to

The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) has introduced a series of measures designed to reduce the need for citizens to use cash to make payments, including a doubling of the contactless payment transaction limit and free access to both prepaid card and mobile wallet services. The contactless payment limit is being doubled from E£300 (US$19.05)