When it comes to payment solutions, Visa is certainly no stranger when it comes to embracing new and unique pieces of technology. While the company might be known for their credit cards, over the years we’ve seen Visa experiment with various payment methods, such as an NFC-enabled ring and also NFC-enabled sunglasses.This is why it doesn’t come as a surprise to see the company unveil a pair of NFC-enabled gloves for the Winter Olympic and Paralympic games. As the name suggests, these are gloves with NFC built into them, so what happens is that when customers want to make payment, instead of digging through their coats and pants for their wallets, they can simply wave their gloves over the payment terminal and it will be registered.
According to Visa, “This payment glove will offer fans a way to pay safely and securely without having to get cold hands. The gloves contain a dual interface chip housed with a contactless antenna capable of completing purchases throughout official Olympic Venues and compatible readers globally. The gloves will come with embedded prepaid amounts valued at KRW30,000 or KRW50,000.”
In addition to gloves, Visa will also make NFC stickers available with similar functionality. Basically if you already have a pair of gloves you prefer using, the sticker will let you add NFC functionality to just about any object to facilitate payments. There will also be a pin that will more or less do the same thing. These payment solutions appear to be temporary and will be made available for purchase to those who are attending the games.
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