We are officially launching our next generation NFC Ring at the 2016 Rio Olympics – one that can make payments using a debit, credit, or any other card.

We showcased the first model of this device in 2015 with Visa and the UK fashion house House of Holland. Now we’ve started shipping units to be used by top athletes in the Olympic village.

At a demonstration event in NYC on Thursday, Visa’s EVP of Innovation and Strategic Partnerships, Jim McCarthy, said “Visa’s first payment ring puts smart payment technology right on the hands of our athletes for convenient and easy payments.”

We believe that all people should have new abilities right on their hand. Open your door with the wave of your hand. Make payments. Share business cards with ease. Enter the metro. And many other capabilities we have as part of our long-term vision.

Payments can be made at stores that have a contactless payment terminal. Like in the picture above.

Where can you use that?
Stores, supermarkets, restaurants, and gas stations. This means Peet’s Coffee, Starbucks, Tesco, Whole Foods, Walgreens, Superdrug (is that really the name of a place to buy drugs in the UK?), H&M, Ikea, M&S, Target, Macy’s, Kohl’s, Staples, Sports Authority, Office Depot, Office Max, GameStop, Best Buy, WHSmith, Subway, McDonalds, Chevron and BP gas stations, yatta yatta.

Here’s a list of some from Visa’s website

See https://www.visa.co.uk/products/visa-contactless/.

Roughly 320,000 of the UK’s 1.7 million merchant terminals are now contactless (19%). By law all UK terminals must be contactless by 2020. In the US 2.4 million of around 13.9 million merchant terminals are contactless (17%). 75% of all retailers in Canada accept contactless payments.

The trend is rapid increase of merchant adoption.

When does it go on the market?
We’re going to start selling it upon the Rio Olympics launch. We will start taking pre-orders this month – we are bogged down with the Olympics at the moment. Thankfully not that we have to exercise for any competitions to get prepared…

We will spread the love with other details soon.