Behind schedule, from today London's 8500 buses will start accepting contactless debit and credit cards for single Oyster fares. The Tube, DLR, Tram and London Overground network - as well as daily and weekly price capping - are slated to follow by the end of next year.

Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, says: "Lots of us have had the frustrating experience of dashing to board a bus only to discover that our Oyster card has run out of credit. So the arrival of this latest technology is welcome news, meaning that with a simple touch of a contactless payment card, people can avoid having to scrabble for change and also still benefit from the Oyster fare discount."

To coincide with the change, MasterCard has carried out research it claims shows that commuters wastes an entire day every year queuing to buy their tickets either as they board a bus or prior to travel.

In addition, with 30% of London bus journeys still made with cash or a paper ticket, one in 10 passengers have missed a bus because they didn't have the right change or were queuing to buy a ticket. Another 36,000 people per day board a bus and find they have insufficient Oyster pay as you go balance for their journey.

MasterCard argues that as well as saving time, the new way to pay will also help passengers who previously lost out on money they'd loaded on to an Oyster card that was then damaged, lost or stolen. Whilst cash can be recovered from registered cards, TfL figures show that almost £30 million was left unspent on Oysters from April 2009-10.

MasterCard rival Visa has carried out a survey of 2050 people showing that three quarters of London public transport users would like an alternative to cash and Oyster with almost half naming contactless as their preferred option.

Marion King, head, MasterCard's UK & Ireland, says: "Today many commuters lose valuable time as they queue up to buy tickets or top up their Oyster balance...This is another milestone towards a world beyond cash as people have even more opportunities to use contactless payments."

King and TfL's director of customer experience Shashi Verma spoke to Finextra about the bank card plans: