Have you ever imagined making payment at cafes and salons by just placing you hand near the contactless card reader? This will soon be made possible by a British-Polish company which is a pioneer in making implantable payment chips.
The company Walletmor said it became the first company to offer these chips for sale.
"The implant can be used to pay for a drink on the beach in Rio, a coffee in New York, a haircut in Paris - or at your local grocery store," Walletmor's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Wojtek Paprota told the BBC.
The company has posted several photos and videos of the technology and how to embed it in the human body. It said that an interested user is given local anesthesia and a chip is inserted in his/her hand.
Walletmor has so far sold more than 500 of these microchips.
Patrick Paumen, a security guard from the Netherlands and one of the users of such payment chips, told the BBC that the reaction he gets from cashiers are priceless.
"The procedure hurts as much as when someone pinches your skin," he further said. Mr Paumen got the chip inserted under its skin in 2019.
Walletmor's chip weighs less than a gram and is little bigger than a grain of rice. It is comprised of a tiny microchip and an antenna encased in a biopolymer - a naturally sourced material, similar to plastic.
The company's CEO said the chip is perfectly safe and has all the regulatory approvals.
Walletmor's chip uses Near-Field Communication or NFC, the technology being used by smartphones for years.
Many users have liked the concept and are posting queries for the company management. “How long does it last?” an Instagram user asked. Walletmor said in its reply: “In Europe it is 8 years and in the USA it is 3 years.”
It also told the users that the chip is available on its website.
