'Oyster phone' trial goes live

The insertion of NFC technology into mobile phones would also make handsets usable for cashless transactions of under £10, in much the same way as Visa's "wave and pay" banking cards.

Visa's cards are already being implemented in the UK by Barclays, whose OnePulse credit card combines the functionality of a credit card with that of an Oyster card and wave-and-pay card.

According to O2's research, people are more likely to go home to retrieve their mobile phone than their wallet. A spokesperson for the operator said NFC would enable the phone to become a virtual wallet, and added that the trial would be "hugely important for customer insight" into the technology's usability.