Mizter T wrote:
Well, I guess the point is that the card would thus be being used to
pay for something other than travel - AIUI it's the fact that the card
is only used as an electronic ticket to pay for travel that exempts it
from this regulation.

Starbucks [1] has a contactless payment system for coffee and Evening
Standard [2] for newspapers - neither of which are travel...

Maybe it's not the "travel" part that makes Oyster exempt, but "one use"?

If so, mobile phone companies must be stretching it a bit with phone
bills able to cover not just calls, but ringtones, games, and even
parking tickets? BT's micropayment system Click&Buy [3] too?

Maybe they're considered something like refillable gift cards from Boots
rather than bank cards, but the difference between the two can't be much
smaller than it is already.

[1] http://starbucks.co.uk/en-GB/_Card/
[2] https://www.eroscard.co.uk/index.asp
[3] http://www.epayments.bt.com/productinfo2.htm