Rejoice, futuristic contactless shoppers! You can now use your Barclays debit card and Barclaycard credit card with Apple Pay in the UK.

It appears that the feature was turned on this morning, and we've confirmed that it works by enrolling a few cards backed by Barclays. As normal, you add a Barclays debit or credit card to Apple Pay by visiting the Wallet app on your iPhone, or the Wallet & Apple Pay section within the Watch app on your iPhone. The process takes about 30 seconds and is relatively painless.

Barclays is the last major bank and credit card issuer to support Apple Pay in the UK. It isn't entirely clear why the banking giant held out for so long, but it could be related to bPay, an in-house contactless payments platform that launched before Apple Pay in the UK. It's fairly safe to assume that Barclays wanted its own solution to succeed, rather than supporting a third party like Apple.

Back in January, Barclays did eventually confirm that it would support Apple Pay, setting a deadline at the end of March. Barclays missed that deadline, but only by a few days.

With contactless payments booming, and Apple Pay now fully supported in the UK, our attention now shifts to Android Pay, which is launching in the UK in the coming months. As it stands, Android Pay hasn't secured support from Natwest, Barclays, or Santander—three of the largest highstreet banks in the UK. Hopefully Google can get them to toe the line before launch.