Xela Finance

The introduction of contactless a few years ago has had it’s pros and cons

Contactless has been great because it reduces the need to carry cash around with you. All you need with you is a card or even just your phone. But as good as that is, it also makes it much easier to spend a lot more money than you were intending. For example, let’s say that in a week you spend £2 a day on cheap bits and bobs with contactless. Each day you don’t think anything of it because its just £2. But if you do that each day for a month then you’ve just spent £60 on things you don’t need and things that you didn’t even notice coming out of your bank account just because they were quick contactless payments. Before you know it you’ve spent £720 in a year. That is absolutely crazy. £720 can be a months rent. But people don’t realise it, because it’s just quick and easy and you don’t realise it.

It’s not only the cost side that makes contactless negative. The convenience of it makes it so easy to persuade people to buy things they don’t need. For example, if you were at a train station and there’s a coffee shop at the train station. If you had only cash on you, you probably wouldn’t be tempted to buy the coffee because of the faff of using cash and dealing with all the loose change. Whereas if you can use contactless it is just a tap away, so you’re much more likely to go and buy it. So because contactless is so convenient it ends up costing you more than if you didn’t have contactless.