How does Swiftaid add Gift Aid to my contactless donations?

Contactless donations are anonymous with no option to tick a box to add Gift Aid, so how does it work?

Swiftaid uses various donor identifiers to match donors to their donations. In the case of contactless donations, the identifier we rely on is a reference linked to your payment card. This reference, called a ‘Payment Account Reference’, is non-sensitive payment data that appears within the card transaction. It is unique to your payment card and cannot be used to make or take payments.

When you make a contactless donation, the terminal provider checks with Swiftaid to see if this identifier is registered with us. If a match is found, Swiftaid automatically creates a Gift Aid declaration, and Gift Aid will be claimed.

In addition to real-time claims, Swiftaid also allows contactless donations to be added retrospectively. This means that if a charity notifies us of contactless donations they’ve received in the past we may be able to match those donations to you and add Gift Aid.