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This is a bizarre feature - perhaps reflective of the unthinking society we live in today. Instead of checking, double checking, then paying, it is a case of paying, then thinking about it, then checking.

Monzo is encouraging carelessness.

For those who are diligent, it means adding an artificial delay into a real-time payment, somewhat negating the benefits and adding friction.

PayPal must have been galvanised into action by the launch of Wero in Germany and its plans for rolling out in-store payments. Cost for the retailer and UX for the consumer will play a big part in who wins.

PayPal has a large share of online payments in Germany but ultimatley consumers keep their money in bank accounts which gives Wero an enduring advantage.

Why the need to co-brand with Mastercard? It must be an expedient to route payments from POS contactless terminals to PayPal but longer term there must be a more direct solution through merchant acquirers. 

You have missed out key data points from the fraud report reference:

p.18 - contactless fraud increased 80% in 2022. Add the 19% increase in 2023 and that is a 142% increase since before the limit was raised to £100.

p.30 - a more meaningful comparator for contactless fraud is face to face card fraud which is the only use case for contactless, rather than all card fraud. Face to face card fraud was £91.4m and contactless accounted for 45%.

Raising the £100 limit will increase contactless fraud further, for very little, if any benefit, especially since plastic usage is declining as mobile card payments increase.