Shoppers that choose to use contactless payments on their card at the checkout will soon be able to spend up to £100 without needing to enter their PIN.
The change will be implemented on the 15th October.
As reported by the Chronicle Live, despite almost two-thirds of all card transactions being made via contactless technology, the changes has caused some concerns of potential exposure to theft.
In order to combat these worries however, some cardholders will be able to set their own contactless limits if they belong to certain banks.
Account holders at banks such as the Bank of Scotland, Halifax, Lloyds and Starling will be able to do this when the changes are implemented next week. Others are expected to do the same in future months.
Despite Barclays, Monzo, RBS, Santander, TSB, Nationwide, HSBC, American Express, MBNA and Capital One not allowing their account holders to set their own limits yet, users can choose to turn off the contactless facility on their card completely.
When contactless payments were introduced in 2007, the transaction limits were initially set to £10. It was then raised to £20 in 2012, and then to £30 in 2015. The maximum amount that could be spent then rose again from £30 to £45 at the beginning of the first national lockdown last year.
Plans to further raise the maximum amount were announced in the Budget in March this year.
Banks are instructed by the Financial Conduct Authority to block contactless payments when more than five are processed in a row, or when the total amount spent since the last time the PIN was entered teaches £130.
The total amount spending cap is also due to increase to £300 at the end of next week.
Despite reassurance that users can set their own spending limits, worries remain that the changes might prove to be tempting for criminals.
According to a report carried out by the Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science at UCL, both credit and debit cards are considered to be "hot property" for criminals.
The report read: "Past experience suggests it could attract new cohorts of teen criminals who are more likely to progress to extended criminal careers, with implications for longer term crime rates."
Despite this, the Treasury have declared that there was no reported rise in fraud when the limit was initially increased to £45 in last March. It also stated that, since April 2020, reported fraud was equal to only 0.02% of the total spent using contactless card payments.
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