Samsung and Visa to launch NFC-enabled Olympics phone

London 2012 will be the launchpad for 'wave and pay' mobiles if these two have anything to do with it.

It's been mooted many times that the big turning point for NFC would be the Olympics, and PocketLint reckons it has the evidence that two of the sporting event's big sponsors, Samsung and Visa, aims to make it so.

It spoke to Sandra Alzetta, head of innovation and new product development at Visa Europe, at its European security summit in Frankfurt.

She intimated that the phone will come with NFC capabilities and special Olympic content. However, she also said that Visa was working to bring NFC to microSD cards so other phone users could get a piece of the contactless action.

Visa says that the new NFC ready phones or memory cards will be able to be used at almost 160,000 terminals in Europe, including the 70,000 shops, bars, and restaurants in the UK.