That’s interesting as yes I have it turned off for security… Will try next time travelling in Europe!
Odd it should always work for transactions. The toggle should just be for ATMs
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Perhaps it does, not sure - as I said the error message we got was with Revolut, so I just assumed I’d need to enable it for Monzo.
Ohh
Those are pinless chip transactions, so I can see why some banks would flag them as unsafe and reject them, even though they would accept the exact same transaction if it was pinless but contactless instead of chip
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Great observation, @anon6782920.
Contactless transactions actually contain different information than normal PIN ones. They have different levels of security and contactless is secured by a one-off cryptogram generated by your card. 
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@projectfortytwo @anon6782920, something I forgot to mention is that sometimes we are legally not allowed to accept certain transactions. (eg. from January it is EU law that we can’t accept Magstripe Contactless apart from Google/Apple Pay).
In other cases it may be Mastercard recommendation or shift of liability on Monzo in cases of fraud
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Is this true even in the US for UK issued cards?
Can you explain “magstripe contactless”?
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That’s a great question… I believe it is UK only for now (the US is quite behind on their payment culture!). Don’t even ask me if that holds from the 31st of January…
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MSD (Mag Stripe Data) is just the same data on the mag stripe replayed over contactless. Card number, expiry etc.
EMV Contactless is basically a chip transaction via RFID.
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Your card has two types of contactless: EMV contactless & CMS.
The first is what you use 99.9% of the time without noticing. With that a safe cryptogram is exchanged from your card to the terminal and it has a limit of £30.
The second is older, with no limit and the same level of security as magnetic stripe (so very little security, and this time with no signature!).
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Apple/Google Pay have an exception because they can add their own layers of security and identity check (via biometrics or in-app PIN)
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Thanks @arthur-ceccotti and @Js38wju3jda. I was aware of EMV contactless but had never heard of magstripe contactless. Very interesting, thanks both for the clarification.
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But shops can ask for Magstripe Contactless, and we (the issuer) decide if we accept it or not
So if I my Monzo card is rejected because of CMS I should retry with it via Google Pay?
I don’t think you would be able to tell if the declined transaction went through as CMS or EMV contactless. As a customer, they look the same.
We have been speaking to the few UK merchants (one quite reputable!) to get this resolved from their side…
But overall it’s a good idea to try a different payment method if the first one failed
@NoIdea one final point is that starting from January now, the UK cards we manufacture won’t have the physical ability to run CMS. So even if the merchant’s POS (ie. payment machine) asks for CMS, the card will say “nah, I don’t know what that is…”.
That’s in line with the EU law I mentioned
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What about CMS in countries that still use this? Normally, I would say swipe or chip, but there is an electric vehicle charging station at my school that is tap-to-pay only.