Barclays launches contactless cash withdrawals

Barclays is rolling out contactless cash withdrawals across the UK, becoming the first British bank to allow customers to withdraw money without requiring a PIN.

Customers will be able to take out up to £100 at in-branch cash machines just by tapping their Android smartphones or contactless debit cards, Barclays has announced.

The feature is being piloted in Northern England before it is rolled out to 600 cash machines across 180 Barclays branches across the UK by the end of January 2017.

It follows in the steps of Bank of America, which launched contactless withdrawals using Android phones earlier this year.

Barclays said the new feature is actually more secure than traditional withdrawals, removing the risk of magnetic card skimming and distraction fraud - where customers are watched as they put in their PIN and then distracted as their cards are swapped out for a fake.

Barclays UK chief executive Ashok Vaswani said: "We are always looking for new ways to make our customers' lives easier and their finances even more secure.

"Our customers now expect to be able to use their smartphone to make their everyday purchases. We want taking out cash to be just as easy."