MasterCard has revealed its new NFC wallet technology, which is designed to be embedded into everything from connected clothing to smart jewellery.
The company has been showing off its new NFC technology over at the 20/20 Conference in Las Vegas, and has been joined by fashion designer Adam Selman as well as Ringly and Nymi.
Selman, who has designed for a host of A-listers including Rhianna, has created a range of NFC embedded clothes, including a dress, bag gloves, earrings and even sunglasses with MasterCard's technology inside.
Nymi is designed for wearable payments and authenticates with the user's unique heart rate signature, which makes it an obvious choice for MasterCard's tech. However, Wareable favourite Ringly hasn't yet tackled mobile payments, and its appearance at MasterCard's event is an exciting leap forward.
MasterCard has been working with contactless outfit NXP and Qualcomm to develop its mobile payment system. NFC is fast becoming a standard for retailer's systems, with most new systems now compatible.
And Ringly's CEO and founder, Christina Mercando d'Avignon, welcomed payment tech to her device:
"Through our partnership with MasterCard, Ringly will not only be able to keep people connected, but will provide another layer to how our customers can use their jewellery while on the go. Our mission is to make women's lives more manageable through beautiful jewellery and discreet technology," she said.
Essential reading: Ringly CEO talks keeping tech simple
MasterCard's idea might not be new; Barclaycard has been touting its bPay technology for a couple of years, and recently collaborated with Lyle & Scott to create NFC embedded clothing. However, what MasterCard brings is global scale, and is likely to accelerate the idea of adding payment tech into anything.
We're likely to see MasterCard's technology start to be embedded into devices next year.
How we test
James is the co-founder of Wareable, and he has been a technology journalist for 15 years.
He started his career at Future Publishing, James became the features editor of T3 Magazine and T3.com and was a regular contributor to TechRadar – before leaving Future Publishing to found Wareable in 2014.
James has been at the helm of Wareable since 2014 and has become one of the leading experts in wearable technologies globally. He has reviewed, tested, and covered pretty much every wearable on the market, and is passionate about the evolving industry, and wearables helping people achieve healthier and happier lives.