Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd and Visa Inc. announced a partnership aimed at bringing contactless payments using near field communications (NFC) to venues of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games. Customers carrying enabled SIM chips in their mobile devices will simply select the Visa mobile payment application on their device and tap or wave the phone near a contactless point-of-sale device.

Visa is working with banks and retailers to spread the acceptance of its contactless payment method at the point of sale, according to the announcement. There are more than 60,000 locations accepting contactless payments already in London, the company said.

"Innovation is a key business driver for Visa, and mobile payments are one of the main areas we're focusing on," said Mariano Dima, executive vice president of Marketing and Payment Solutions at Visa Europe. "The Olympic and Paralympic Games enable us to accelerate our business goals, and this partnership plays a large role in achieving them."

As a part of the effort, Samsung and Visa will provide enabled handsets to sponsored athletes participating in the games.

"This mobile payment device will be available in the U.K. initially, and we plan to expand the service to other countries in Europe and around the world where contactless payment facilities are available in the near future," said Seokpil Kim, president and CEO of Samsung Electronics Europe.