Bank customers can earn up to £60 a year from their contactless card payments after TSB launched a cashback deal on its most popular current account.
Twenty-four hours after the UK’s contactless card payment limit rose from £20 to £30, TSB said it would give its Classic Plus account holders 5% cashback on the first £100 of “wave and pay” purchases made each month using their debit card.
That is on top of the 5% interest customers can already earn on balances of up to £2,000 – a perk worth £97.80 a year.
TSB relaunched in September 2013 after being spun off by its parent company Lloyds, and was taken over by Spanish banking group Sabadell this year. It launched Classic Plus, which has no monthly fee, in March 2014, and since then more than 380,000 new accounts have been opened.
The cashback is automatically earned by all Classic Plus customers who hold a contactless debit card and are registered for internet banking – but the offer is due to expire on 31 December 2016.
Mass take-up of contactless technology was slow to start with, but usage exploded in 2014, with MasterCard recently revealing that spending by British consumers on contactless cards has leapt by 560% in the past 12 months.
More retailers are set to sign up as a result of the limit being upped to £30 from 1 September – but the change is not happening everywhere overnight. All terminals will need a software update, with most outlets expected to be ready by 31 October.
