Contactless is already ubiquitous in the UK, everything from the local corner shop to the guy selling pizza at the last public event I went to takes it.
It's rare I have to put my pin in these days since I don't have many single transactions over 30 quid.
That's one of the funny differences I've seen between UK and US. Contactless is ubiquitous in the UK, and less so in the US. But there is no £30 limit on contactless payments in the US. I've used tap-to-pay with Apple Pay to spend hundreds of dollars in a single purchase, no pin, no signature, no problem.
A lot of people using contactless in the UK are using debit cards not credit cards which lack (here at least) the strong fraud protections that credit cards do - which is one of the reasons I put my new computer on my partners card then transferred the money to her bank to bank to settle it, so the £30 limit without pin acts as a brake on a stolen card giving the person who lost it time to report it as lost.
These are different things. There's a £30 limit on Android/Apple payments, and contactless cards if the payment terminal only supports contactless. If they have a new enough terminal that also directly supports Apple/Android pay, there is no cap.
The £30 Apple Pay limit in the UK is becoming less of a thing. In major retailers that accept Apple Pay I have used my phone to pay for items into the hundreds of pounds without issue.
Funny you mention PINs. We did finally get chipped cards in the US, but it’s “chip and signature” so we’re missing some of the security improvements. Harder to skim at least?
Phone and watch based NFC will eventually displace that I think.
I personally prefer Chip and Signature. We have the same system in Hong Kong where most cards have a Chip and PIN but most card readers will just ask for your signature anyway. It puts the burden on the merchant to check the signature instead of the cardholder to not have their PIN guessed/overseen. We also seem to have no limit on PayWave (contactless) transactions but for larger purchasers the merchant may ask for a signature over the "No Signature Required" slip anyway.
> It puts the burden on the merchant to check the signature instead of the cardholder to not have their PIN guessed/overseen
Maybe it's different in HK, but here in US and A I literally just make random scribbles (or sometimes just write "void" for kicks) and nothing is ever checked.
Works the same in HK but if you notice a suspicious transaction you can get it reversed when the signature doesn't match. If you use the PIN it's a lot harder to reverse.
It's rare I have to put my pin in these days since I don't have many single transactions over 30 quid.