As it became known on Tuesday, Barclaycard is raising the number of its cardholders with the contactless functionality on their plastic cards. Thus, new contactless payment technology within the card will let Barclaycard Gold and Classic cardholders make payments of up to £10 by swiping their card against a reader, like the system used for Oyster travelcards on the London Underground.

Currently, about 2 million of its contactless cards are in use, including Barclaycard OnePulse, Barclaycard Platinum and Barclaycard Goldfish credit cards.

The companies that are to accept such payments include Coffee Republic, Eat, Krispy Kreme and Pret A Manger.

The very first contactless card was issued by Barclaycard in 2007 and has pledged to have all of its debit cards equipped with contactless tech by 2011.