This doesn't make sense. Why would any transaction occur in a foreign currency? If I use my Australian credit card to purchase a cup of coffee in the UK, the transaction occurs in pounds, not Australian dollars.
The terminal never sees "foreign currency". It is the responsibility of Visa/MasterCard to perform currency conversion.
Your card, which sees itself as a payer of AUD, gets a request for a transaction in GBP. This research suggests it will authorize the transaction even if it is above whatever normal local limit you have on AUD transactions.
Whether that's actually true or not, is unknown at this stage - this was a test on a UK contactless card, so maybe we have a slightly different arrangement than your Australian contactless card would.
It's also fairly unlikely that the payment processors would accept a transaction higher than the contactless cap, just because it's in a foreign currency.
It's also entirely possible that they don't bother enforcing a limit because the UK banks involved won't accept any foreign currency contactless transactions. I've never tried to use my UK contactless cards abroad.
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This doesn't make sense. Why would any transaction occur in a foreign currency? If I use my Australian credit card to purchase a cup of coffee in the UK, the transaction occurs in pounds, not Australian dollars.
The terminal never sees "foreign currency". It is the responsibility of Visa/MasterCard to perform currency conversion.
This isn't about the terminal.
Your card, which sees itself as a payer of AUD, gets a request for a transaction in GBP. This research suggests it will authorize the transaction even if it is above whatever normal local limit you have on AUD transactions.
Whether that's actually true or not, is unknown at this stage - this was a test on a UK contactless card, so maybe we have a slightly different arrangement than your Australian contactless card would.
It's also fairly unlikely that the payment processors would accept a transaction higher than the contactless cap, just because it's in a foreign currency.
It's also entirely possible that they don't bother enforcing a limit because the UK banks involved won't accept any foreign currency contactless transactions. I've never tried to use my UK contactless cards abroad.