Changes to contactless payment limits came in on 19 March. As a result, the FCA has published an updated payments services approach document to include updated guidance on exemptions from strong customer authentication (SCA), including the contactless payments exemption. The guidance includes:
No SCA for low‑risk contactless transactions
Payment service providers (PSPs) must not apply SCA at the point of sale when a payer initiates a contactless electronic payment that the PSP has reasonably assessed as low risk. This is subject to the requirements in Article 2 of the SCA Regulatory Technical Standards (SCA RTS).
Assessing low‑risk transactions
As well as the factors in Article 2(2) of the SCA RTS, PSPs may take into account other risk‑based indicators, for example, a payer's typical spending or behavioural patterns, or their location. PSPs may also identify a transaction as low risk by looking at the value of the individual contactless payment, the cumulative value of previous
