Forget smartphones, Visa wants you to pay with your sunglasses

Thanks to mobile payment services like Android Pay and Samsung Pay, you can already make purchases with your smartphone or smartwatch. At the South by Southwest Festival (SXSW) in Austin, Texas, Visa took things to a whole new level by announcing payment-enabled sunglasses.

At first glance, the prototype doesn’t really look any different than your normal pair of sunglasses. The only difference is that it features a small NFC chip in one of the arms, which is connected to a Visa account. To complete a purchase, all you have to do is hold the sunglasses near an NFC-enabled terminal, wait a second or two for the transaction to be completed, and you’re done.

Chris Curtin, Visa’s chief brand and innovation marketing officer, said that the company’s vision is to transform everyday items into payment-enabled products. This means we might see more prototypes from Visa in the future, maybe even a ring that will allow you to pay for goods and services.

Visa’s NFC-equipped sunglasses are currently only a prototype and therefore aren’t available on the market yet. The company is trying to strike a deal with a bank or two and once that happens, the innovative product just might go on sale.