The rise of digital banking over the past decade has fuelled a lifestyle revolution. The emergence of chip and pin, contactless cards, digital wallets, online banking and mobile apps have made life more convenient for many. However, this digital transformation has also driven major changes to our cash infrastructure. Bank branches have closed at an... Continue Reading →

Customers at six 7-Eleven stores in Japan can now make contactless payments using a holographic screen projected from the self-checkout terminal. Developed by Toshiba, the Digi POS system creates the illusion of a touchscreen interface hanging in the air in front of a shopper.Customers scan the products in their cart and then select their preferred payment method and... Continue Reading →

The lifting of the limit on contactless payments to £100 in the UK has led to a surge in tap-and-pay transactions, as consumers use the touchless checkout method to pay for higher value items. December 2021 card spending data from UK Finance reveals that the average amount spent per contactless card transaction rose by almost 30 per cent... Continue Reading →

We are pleased to feature a guest blog from Card Industry Professionals and focus on digital generosity by taking a look at the shift to online and contactless donations Card Industry Professionals are trusted providers of Card Payment facilities for UK based businesses. With a number of unique benefits, including No PCI Compliance Fees, No Authorisation Fees,... Continue Reading →

We are pleased to feature a guest blog from Timur Yunusov at Payment Village - Timur unpacks the topic of contactless cumulative limits and how they work. If you live in the UK, you might have noticed changes in how you pay with your contactless card in the last few years. It was fairly obvious back in... Continue Reading →

Contactless Payments in the UK Barclaycard have reported that contactless transactions surged in the UK during 2021. Data: Barclaycard & Graphic: Northey Point Taking friction out of purchases The increase to the £100 payment limit has been a great opportunity to take friction out of the purchase experience. This is especially the case in busy... Continue Reading →

A guest blog by: Card Industry Professionals. In a recent blog, Integrated Payment Systems, digital solutions where size no longer matters, we discussed the benefits of joined up systems for companies of all sizes. In this blog we consider why businesses simply stop at a standalone card accepting system when there are many other options available. Integrating systems yields many more benefits –... Continue Reading →

The Pret Foundation has partnered with Contactless Giving Week this December to raise awareness and support cashless fundraising for their work towards breaking the cycle of homelessness. Earlier this year, over 40 Pret shops were fitted with GoodBox contactless giving devices to raise funds to help to break the cycle of homelessness.The aim of The... Continue Reading →

Lloyds Banking Group customers will be able to set their own limits when the new £100 ceiling on contactless card payments comes into effect in October. The upcoming hike in the contactless spending limit on consumer debit cards has raised fears that they could become a target for fraudsters, who can escape unchecked for at least... Continue Reading →

What started with a pepperoni pizza in 1994...  Credit card usage has grown exponentially since the launch of Barclaycard in 1966 and card payments overall from the first debit card, also from Barclays, in 1987.  The move from paper vouchers to electronic processes led to greater growth in businesses offering card acceptance but entry and fixed... Continue Reading →

Vicki Hyman at Mastercard has been writing about the end of the magnetic stripe on our debit and credit cards: In the early age of modern credit cards, they had to write down account information for each card-carrying customer by hand. Later, they used flatbed imprinting machines to record the card information on carbon paper... Continue Reading →

East Anglia's Children's Hospices (EACH) offer care and support for children and young people with life-threatening conditions and support families across Cambridgeshire, Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk. They offer families flexibility and control over where they receive their care and support, including where their child dies; at home, in hospital or at one of three hospices... Continue Reading →

Sellers of the Big Issue, a magazine sold by the homeless across the UK, are now able to accept PayPal QR Code payments, following an accelerated roll out of iZettle card readers to over a third of its vendor network. During the pandemic, The Big Issue has grown the number of vendors with smartphones from 515 to 1,150 and set... Continue Reading →

Visa report one billion additional touch-free Visa payments made as consumers embrace contactless commerce. Visa report that: Less than a year since contactless limits increased across Europe, Visa has hit one billion additional touch-free transactions, 400 million of which took place in the UK. Consumers and merchants are increasingly turning to contactless payments as a secure... Continue Reading →

The Falkland Islands are among the most remote places on earth: an untamed expanse of boundless landscapes and wild ocean, where penguins outnumber people one hundred to one. But they’re also a place of inspiring and resilient local businesses, run by enterprising locals. And now, the Falkland Islanders are running and growing their businesses with... Continue Reading →

Amazon has opened its first “just walk out” grocery store in the UK where shoppers can pick up their goods and leave without having to visit a till. The Amazon Fresh store in Ealing, west London, is a “contactless” shop available to anyone signed up to Amazon and with the app on their phone. Checking out... Continue Reading →

“Customers, helped by external cash dispensers and by credit cards can get along surprising well without often visiting their bank.” D. Vander Weyer, Barclays, 1970. Thanks to innovations like the credit card, after 50 years we have an increasingly ‘cashless’ and an almost ‘chequeless’ society. Also, how often do we visit our bank branch? (If... Continue Reading →

With contactless payments accounting for 37 per cent of all credit card and 59 per cent of all debit card transactions it is perhaps, no wonder, that the Chancellor has announced an increase in the UK's contactless payments limit. In his speech the Chancellor announced that the single contactless transaction payment threshold limit will rise... Continue Reading →

Roses are yoursViolets are mineIn Blighty we PINThe Yanks still sign On this anniversary weekend the folks at Consult Hyperion are getting all romantic. On this anniversary weekend Consult Hyperion recall that their romance with smart cards started many years ago. Dave Birch recalls that it will be fifteen years on Sunday that chip and PIN... Continue Reading →

Statista report that most South Koreans wouldn’t trade their cashless payments for anything. In Japan, Spain and France between 60 and 67 percent of people prefer cashless payments and the least people were in favour of cashless payments were in the Philippines at 33 percent. The share of respondents who said they preferred to pay without... Continue Reading →

On Friday Trilo powered their first POS/in-person payment with Open Banking. Until then customers could only pay in shops via card or cash, now this has changed. Trilo gives merchants and customers the ability to make and receive payments with no hardware or software required. Merchants can use their tablet or phone to create a payment. The customer then... Continue Reading →

Card payments would have been introduced on North Isles ferries by now if it wasn’t for coronavirus restrictions, councillor says. Source: Shetland News. A former banking industry chief who visited Shetland while attempting to live without using notes or coins in a “cashless” experiment has welcomed trials of card payments on inter-island ferries. Having to... Continue Reading →

Evolving consumer preferences and digital transformation are boosting European cashless transactions. The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated this trend, exploiting a need for safer and more convenient payment methods both for remote and physical transactions. However, cash remains the preferred means for payments in Italy. A guest blog by Marco Folcia, Sara Marcozzi, Tommaso Gheduzzi and... Continue Reading →

Don’t ask me ask the 71% of people that have replaced all or some of their cash habits. Moving quickly and responsibly to a cashless society Earlier this week I took part in the second PHOS Steering Group on the subject of “Moving quickly and responsibly to a cashless society. This second Steering Group discussed “understanding and removing the barriers to a cashless... Continue Reading →

Frictionless and contactless - you can now order McDonald's hands-free with Siri and Apple Pay McDonald’s has launched a brand-new function on the My McDonald’s App where customers are now able to order and pay for their food using Siri and Apple Pay.  https://youtu.be/O7a719HQAiE Hands-free ordering is no longer a thing of the future as... Continue Reading →

Car drivers in the US can now use Amazon's Alexa to pay for fuel with a simple voice command. Available at over 11,500 Exxon and Mobil stations across the US, the “Alexa, pay for gas” command uses the default payment option set in the user Amazon account. The process - which includes geo-location at Exxon... Continue Reading →

Use the slider to spot the difference at the Kettledrum Cafe in Rothesay on the Isle of Bute Can you spot the difference? Back in February I made a confession - I paid cash for a beaut Bute meat pie. I am sure I could have purchased a cashless sandwich from the COOP but when... Continue Reading →

August marks another cashless year for me, you may remember my last anniversary blog “Don’t think of it as going cashless, think of it as an upgrade to the 21st Century”.  You’ll see that this time last year I set myself two key challenges - to banish the paper receipt and maximise the use of frictionless... Continue Reading →

This article first appeared in the Payments, Payments, Payments newsletter - read, subscribe and share: northeypoint.substack.com/welcome The start of lockdown in March 2020 saw the use of cash in the UK halve in a matter of days. Has this begun a move towards becoming a cashless society? What are the benefits, opportunities, and concerns of... Continue Reading →

As a cashless advocate tipping is the final frontier for me - whilst I find that most places provide digital tipping options my favourite restaurant and my barber both have stuck to cash only tips for their staff. After reading about thankU in the Daily Telegraph and The Times I invited thankU creator Adrian Harris... Continue Reading →

LINK, the operator of the UK’s ATM network, have just reported: “Cash is gradually coming back. The 19th May saw ATM withdrawals of £179m, the highest for a Tuesday during Lockdown and up 20% on Tuesday the 21st April”LINK I am running a Twitter poll for a newsletter piece on post pandemic cash use in... Continue Reading →

A new study has highlighted Europe’s leading cashless economies. Retail Times report that a new study by Merchant Machine has analysed Europe’s leading cashless economies. The study highlights the countries where citizens would like to go completely cashless the most and who uses contactless payments the most. COVID19 changes everything Given the study was pre-lockdown... Continue Reading →

Cash usage dropped by half over the last week, it is vital that digital payment options are accessible, inclusive and equitable for all in society. The planned increase of the contactless limit from 1 April is an excellent first step. However, don’t forget that with digital wallets like ApplePay payments are not constrained by a... Continue Reading →

Today (9 March 2020) LINK, the company that operates the UK’s ATM network, released the weekly statistics for ATM based cash withdrawals. When comparing week ending 8 March with the equivalent week in 2019, LINKS own data shows that there were 6,300,000 fewer ATM withdrawals during the 7 day period. Over six million fewer transactions... Continue Reading →

Today Link, the operator of the UK’s largest ATM network, published the number and value of ATM transactions across their network over the last week. Once again the figures continue to demonstrate that the UK is fast becoming a truly cashless society. Link’s figures show that cash withdrawals for last week are down roughly 10... Continue Reading →

As Gloucester Rugby trial cashless bars at the Kingsholm stadium it was great to share my experiences of being cashless with BBC Radio Gloucester’s Steve Kitchen. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p081prfn You can catch my piece at 1 hour and 26 minutes.

Like many clubs and businesses Gloucester Rugby club are trialing cashless stadiums. Starting with this Friday’s match against Sale the club will be trialling payment by card only in a number of bars at the Kingsholm Stadium. As Gloucester's rugby club make this move, it was great to be on Steve Kitchen's BBC Radio Gloucester's... Continue Reading →

A guest blog by: Joël Kai Lenz Hi there! My name is Joël Kai Lenz and I’m here to talk to you about my experience on my past 2 years of living without any cash. Before I get started with the article, I need to tell you about my everyday life. Why? Well I feel... Continue Reading →

It is always good to be honest - so let me confess..... I paid in cash for two things today! If you follow me on social media you’ll know that from the top of Shetland’s North Isles to the beaches of Lanzarote and everywhere in between I have been successfully cashless for a very long... Continue Reading →

Sitting on a bench outside the Jewellery exhibition at the Victoria and Albert museum thinking about the impact of free access to one of London’s most prestigious museums. Does a cashless donation option at a museum make you more likely to donate? St. Michael Vote now: https://twitter.com/mike_chambers/status/1198605774580256768?s=21

“Just like that ... boom” cashless payment experience for a customer.Excellent piece by Paul Lewis on BBC Radio 4’s Money Box on Saturday about paying for the Big Issue using iZette. Sellers using Monzo providing inclusive and accessible banking.

Two weeks into my second cashless year - https://northeypoint.com/2019/08/24/dont-think-of-it-as-going-cashless-think-of-it-as-an-upgrade-to-the-21st-century/ - and having mastered being cashless I am now focussing on being 'wallet-less' and mastering 'frictionless' payments. A simple approach to being cashless My cashless approach is a Mastercard debit card from Starling Bank, a Visa credit card from Barclaycard all loaded into my Apple Pay... Continue Reading →

This week it was a pleasure to answer some questions from a MA journalism student from the University of Sheffield. The student is currently working on a project about the impact of society going cashless and was interested to hear more about your experience living completely cashless. Here is what I said: 1: When did... Continue Reading →

This weekend marks the first 52 weeks of my cashless challenge – a time to reflect on being cashless in the UK. Cash is in rapid decline: Source: UK Finance Don’t take my word for it, this is the view of UK Finance – cash as a percentage of all payments has declined from 60%... Continue Reading →

What cashless tip would you recommend? That was the final question I asked Cashless advocates on Twitter last weekend. Don't just rely on carrying one card said one - or carry one card and use ApplePay on your phone with another card (maybe one Visa and one Mastercard?) Carry a contingency note in your phone... Continue Reading →