Swatch teams with Visa to launch pay-by-wrist watch

Swatch has partnered with Visa to launch its 'pay-by-the-wrist' Bellamy watch in the US, Switzerland and Brazil in early-2016.

  22 2 comments

Swatch teams with Visa to launch pay-by-wrist watch

Editorial

This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community.

The Swatch smart watch is named after 19th century American writer Edward Bellamy, who envisioned a utopian future in which cash had been replaced by payment cards.

The Swiss watchmaker has already secured a deal with China UnionPay to launch the timepiece in China.

The firm says that the NFC chip hidden under the dial uses zero energy when making a transaction so that users can expect the usual battery life of a regular Swatch. The firm expects the feature - and the standard design - to be a differentiator as it takes on smartwatches launched by interlopers such as Apple and Samsung.

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Comments: (2)

A Finextra member 

I have a NFC device that does not drain its own intrenal battery when authenticating my transactions. Its called a contactless debit card. I hope Swatch have some other USP than just that - perhaps looking nicer - although if they keep the price down, i might just buy one if they come to the UK...

Arjeh Van Oijen

Arjeh Van Oijen Head of Product Management at Icon Solutions

Think about check-in/out at toll ports without taking your phone from your ear (during call) or getting your phone out of your pocket, but just by a flick of the wrist. Quite curious whether the NFC chip is single-provider (in this case Visa) only or can support multiple providers. In case of the latter you need to be able to load new accounts on the chip, e.g. via an App that runs on a phone that communicates via NFC with the watch. App is provided by the TMS that operates the chip in the watch.

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