Fit Pay adds pre-paid capability to wearable devices
Fit Pay, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of NXT-ID, Inc. (NASDAQ: NXTD) and a provider of payment, credential management, and authentication platform services today announced that it would offer prepaid capabilities on wearable devices connected to the Fit Pay Payment Platform.
0
External
This content is provided by an external author without editing by Finextra. It expresses the views and opinions of the author.
The general purpose reloadable (GPR) program, 'The FitPay Prepaid MasterCard®', will give consumers with Fit Pay's contactless payment-enabled devices the convenience of storing funds directly on their device. The new feature provides consumers with the ease and security of contactless payments.
"Adding reloadable prepaid capabilities is a new feature for devices on our platform and makes our payment enablement services available on a wider range of form factors," said Michael Orlando, President of Fit Pay, Inc. and COO of NXT-ID.
The FitPay Prepaid MasterCard® option will be available to device OEMs that integrate their products with the Fit Pay platform. The new feature allows consumers to load their Fit Pay-enabled Internet of Things (IoT) or wearable device with a prepaid value for contactless purchases. A digital wallet allows the user to re-load the account, set top-off thresholds and manage the account settings.
"Prepaid accounts give consumers more flexibility in how they make contactless payments," added Orlando. "This is particularly appealing to millennials who are more likely to use a prepaid account, more likely to own a wearable and more likely to make a contactless payment."
The FitPay Prepaid MasterCard® is sponsored by Sunrise Banks, N.A. Cascade Financial Technology Corp. serves as the program manager. The device can be used everywhere that Debit MasterCard® is accepted.
"Prepaid is a natural fit for enabling payments within the IoT ecosystem. It meets consumers' needs for security and control as their payment credentials are linked to a wider set of devices. The flexible nature of the prepaid platform enables many innovative use cases with both traditional and non-traditional players, and our work with Fit Pay is a great example," said Solana Cozzo, North America Vice President of Prepaid and Inclusive Growth for MasterCard®.
Fit Pay's proprietary technology platform delivers payment, credential management, authentication and other secure services to the IoT ecosystem. The platform uses Near Field Communication (NFC) technology to interact with over 10 million retail point-of-sale (POS) terminals worldwide, making it possible to pay for goods and services almost anywhere with a simple tap. Fit Pay's end-to-end payment solution allows IoT and wearable device manufacturers to add payment and authentication capabilities to their products with very little start-up time, no investment in software development and instant access to the leading card networks.