The wearables market had another great boost in 2017, but this time not only healthcare and sports wearables were responsible for it – payments wearables also played a big part. According to recent studies, over 60% of all wearables will feature payment services by the end of 2020. But why is that? One of the main reasons is undoubtedly related to security or when it comes to wearables: “tokenization”. Namely, your personal card digits will not be used or stored in your wearable device, but other than that, alternate numbers or “tokens” will be adopted as an alternative to our recent card PIN. A second reason that could be pointed out is ease. Being adept to pay for your ordered food or cinema tickets with a simple tap on your wrist can be a great life changer!
Based on that, we came up with the most effortless and stylish payment wearables available now in the market. Check them out:
The Halo Ring, by Bankwest Halo, is the most recent gadget payment tech in Australia. The ring is a simple ceramic band that can be worn anytime and anywhere – even for swimming – and it does not require charging! According to its developers, having a discreet ring can be a great plus in order to avoid any endangered situation or thieves. The ring uses technology from Mastercard and it is backed by the same Zero Liability Protection that applies to Bankwest Halo´s range of debit Mastercards, which makes your shopping even safer!
Garmin Pay™, by Garmin, is a payment device that allows for contactless payments via Visa and Mastercard cards. The wearable is powered by FitPay – a platform designed to mobile payment and IoT devices – which will make your payments offhand and secure! All you have to do is to enter your password in your Garmin watch, select the card you would like to procedure with the payment and hold your wrist near to the card reader. That´s it! Another convenience of this technology is that your card number will not be automatically stored in your device, which means, you can do all of your payments with zero concern!
The Dutch Bank ABN Amro has teamed up with Digiseq in order to create a first pilot that will enable customers to make contactless payments worldwide – these made by wearables. Digiseq is one of the top digital enables of Mastercard, Apple and PayPal and is also responsible for the Kerv Ring. The Kerv Ring was one of the first payment rings released in the market that does not require PIN, signature, bank account or smartphone in order to run. Participants of the pilot project are sending feedback via an application so that their experience can be optimized in real-time. While the project is still in beta, we can check out below the Kerv Ring and its features in the hope that something as ease will be available pretty soon!
Price: £99.99
Fitbit has introduced this year a new smartwatch: Fitbit Ionic. Other than the normal features that a fitness smartwatch presents (e.g. coaching, GPS, heart-frequency & exercise tracking, calories counting, among others) the Ionic smartwatch will also provide its users with contactless payment services. The smartwatch is available in the market since end of January and comes in three different colors and bands – including leather.
You can buy it here! Price: €299.00
Last but not least, Visa has released for the 2018 Winter Olympics the first payment gloves! These include of a dual interface chip equipped with a contactless antenna that will allow users to complete purchases throughout the whole event! We have written about it in one of our previous articles and you can check it out here!
