Fumbling around for loose change has seemed one of those activities that technology had failed to make an impression on. Standing at the till in your local newsagent gathering together loose bronze and silver to pay dor your daily newspaper has always been one of life’s minor embarrassments as the queue behind you grows. But now technology is on the verge of bringing ‘swipe’ technology to corner shops across the UK.

Tap-and-Go is the latest technology development to arrive on the High Street enabling small transactions up to the value of £10 to be completed without the traditional fuss. At the moment the technology is available in around 3000 shops in Central London but is set to rollout across the UK over the next couple of years. Halifax and Royal Bank of Scotland are the latest banks to start issuing the new style cards. NatWest has already issued cards to many of its customers.

For transactions for more than £10 and for cash machine withdrawals a PIN is still required while to improve security further and prevent a thief from using the new cards many times, a PIN will be required after a set number of transactions.

Beyond Tap-and-Go, banks are already looking at other technologies. Barclaycard, Nokia and O2 are developing mobile phones which incorporate a payment chip. About 500 such phones are being tested by O2 customers currently. Similar technology is already in use in Japan and Korea where millions of transactions are carried out with ease and without safety fear.