Olympics To Stimulate Mobile and Wearable Payments Industry

The forthcoming Olympics is creating a huge opportunity for the mobile and wearable payments industry.

The stage is set for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and one major industry player, VISA, says it will be a boom time for the payment infrastructures, not only just for the games themselves, but also the host city.

Figures released by VISA show that they plan to install 4,000 point-of-sale terminals across the main Olympic venues. VISA is creating, installing and operating the complete payment system infrastructure for the games and the POS terminals are being located in a wide range of venues, including the official village and the superstores. As well as the POS terminals, 11 ATMS will be on site, in a partnership with Bradesco.

All the POS terminals will be contactless-enabled. This reflects Brazil’s leading role in this sector. A VISA spokesperson told the trade media that: “Brazil is actually the world’s leading contactless market, with more than 1.7 million contactless terminals in place throughout the country.”

What excites VISA, and other companies in the sector, is the expected footfall. Estimates suggest that over half-a-million visitors from around the world will visit Rio de Janeiro in the summer. What’s more, previous data suggests that visitor’s to the games will spend on average nearly $2,000 each.

The VISA spokesperson added that the games will be a superb opportunity to thoroughly test new products and systems which are ready to be launched.

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Reference: PaymentEye