Like Westfield, Visa is also experimenting with the technology. It has developed a prototype stadium preview that people could visit in advance of an event at a physical location. At the conference Bill Gajda, Global Head of Innovation and strategic partnerships at Visa, says: You can get a 360 view, choose a seat, check the sight lines and even order and pay for food.

So what will that payment experience look like? In a WorldPay prototype, it is almost exactly like the real world. The user picks a virtual card and taps it on a virtual card machine. He or she can even tap in a PIN (though the numbers hover in space).

This might seem unimaginative, but according to Nick Telford-Reed, Director of Innovation at WorldPay, familiarity counts. VR is a completely new frontier for payments, so we have to ease people into it. But Im sure clever designers will come up with better prompts.

Beyond transactional experiences, VR has the potential to alter the way businesses interact with their clients. Many of our clients are often travelling and have busy schedules, but hugely value the face-to-face relationship with their Coutts advisors explains Robert Hemphill, Head of Innovation, Coutts; imagine if we could emulate that very same experience, wherever our clients happen to be in the world.

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New technology could revolutionise the way we do our shopping and banking, but does the reality live up to the hype? - Coutts