It’s where a customer asks for cashback from a retailer using their debit card, but there’s no need to buy anything. It’s like using the till as an ATM.

This is where a customer goes into a retailer and buys a pint of milk, for example, and asks for cashback on top of the purchase.

Everyone should have easy access to cash, especially those living in areas where banking facilities and free-to-use ATMs are limited.

Barclays and the wider industry are supporting this initiative to promote easier access to cash for everyone.

• If you offer Purchase With Cashback (PWCB) you have to offer Cashback Without Purchase (CWP) as well – you can’t provide one service without the other

• Customers can request up to £100 per transaction

• Your ability to offer cashback depends on the amount of cash in your till

• Cashback is only available using:

    – Visa Debit

    – Visa Electron

    – Mastercard Debit

• Earn 15p for every approved cashback without purchase transaction you process.^* This will be applied to your statement and will offset your card processing fees. For Interchange Plus merchants, the cashback without purchase credit is subject to your pricing plan stated in your communication from Barclaycard Payments.^†

• The credit fee will appear in the Interchange section of your statement. It will be net of any debit interchange fees you’re charged on PWCB transactions

^**Excludes All-In, Corporate/Bespoke Blended pricing constructs.

Cashback Without Purchase (CWP) works in the same way as Purchase With Cashback (PWCB).

• Select ‘Purch. With Cashback’ on your terminal

• If it’s a PWCB transaction, enter the sale amount. If it’s a CWP transaction, leave the sale amount as £0.00

• Then ask the customer to insert their card and enter the cashback amount (maximum of £100 per transaction)

• The customer then enters their PIN. Once authorised, you can hand the cash over to the customer

You’ll find more details in our guide How to process CWP transactions.

It’s available to all small business merchants in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland who have a Flex card reader.

If you’re eligible, you should’ve received window stickers and desktop displays to help you promote the service to your customers. If you need more supplies of these, please contact UK Paper Rolls on 01698 843 866.

Offering cashback is an optional service. If you’re running low on cash in your till, just explain to your customers why you can’t offer them cashback today.

Cashback transactions have the same level of security and protection as regular card sale transactions, so any fraudulent activity will be handled in the same way.

You should deal with this as you would when providing purchases with cashback or giving change to your customers.

Explain to your customer that you’re unable to authorise their card transaction, and therefore can’t offer them cashback. The cardholder will need to contact their card issuer to resolve the problem.

If the complaint relates to the card not being authorised, then your customer should talk to their card issuer. If the complaint relates to the service provided by your terminal, please contact us on 0800 161 5350.

A debit card will usually have ‘Debit’ written on the front of the card. If your customer tries to access cashback with their credit card, the request won’t be authorised.

Cashback is an optional service you can offer customers. We recommend you keep this service in case you decide to offer it in the future. However, if you want to opt out of offering cashback, please call 0800 161 5343 and we’ll have it deactivated from your Flex terminal.

If the service isn’t currently active on your Flex terminal, please call us on 0800 161 5343 and we’ll arrange for it to be activated.