Samsung and Visa say they'll give the phones to athletes they are sponsoring at the games, and sell them to the general public through operators and other distributors. While the phones will be available only in the U.K., the companies say they expect to expand the service to Europe and other regions.

Rival handset maker Nokia was once an enthusiastic backer of NFC, forming a joint venture company with Giesecke & Devrient to develop services around the technology. A few years later Nokia sold its share in the company.

There have been numerous tests of NFC payment systems around the world but few have resulted in commercial services. However, there has been renewed interest in NFC since Google built support for the technology into Android.

Separately on Thursday, Google said it had joined the NFC Forum, an association that backs NFC, deepening its involvement with the technology.

The IDG News Service