The smartwatch market is hooked on credit cards

Two smartwatch brands are compatible with new contactless technology payment systems.

The market ofsmartwatches(smart watches) in the country is expanding with the new offer of applications aimed at different services, including banking.

Brands like Garmin and Fitbit are the first to take advantage of this niche, in which Banco ProCredit and Produbanco—together with Mastercard and Visa, with which they have respectively made alliances—have launched their applications and platforms to offer a new technology payment system.contactless(no contact).

Garmin and Fitbit watches have a technological ecosystem that allows the digitization of debit cards. It also facilitates the secure storage of cards in these devices and their use through short-range wireless technology (NFC).

In the case of Garmin, a brand that has been in Ecuador for 25 years, its commercial director, Rebecca Jouvin, indicated that its payment solution contactless is Garmin Pay, which works with various credit and debit cards from major banks.

“At the moment the cards that are enabled are the Mastercard with ProCredit bank and Visa with Produbanco; We are managing with the other banks and cards, and it is most likely that by the middle of this year at the latest all the cards and all the banks will be enabled,” said Jouvín, who added that the prices of the watches that have this tool range from $250 and up.

There are thirteen models that offer these benefits, which can be purchased nationwide through the pagewww.garmin.ec.

Jouvín assured that sales expectations with this new tool are high, due to the increase in benefits for users.

“We have one more reason to demonstrate that Garmin watches are the best in technology, GPS, sports and health functions that exist on the market,” said the brand spokesperson.

While Fitbit does not have national representation, although it has more than 25 million devices sold in more than 45,000 stores in 50 countries around the world, according to its websitewww.fitbit.com. Their prices range from $59 to $399, approximately.

However, Sebastián Quevedo, Vice President of Payment Methods at Produbanco, commented that not all versions of these watches support the payment solution.

“My business was growing and I wanted to scale markets and needed the help of mentors… We wanted to learn how the other markets behaved,” says Zamriver.

“This value proposition is much more focused on a segment of customers with a specific lifestyle (very similar to health and exercise) and that continues to constantly grow, even more so due to the importance that new generations give to care and personal health,” said the manager.

He added that together with Garmin Pay and Fitbit Pay, the entity also launched Promerica Pay, a mobile application also with technologycontactless, which allows you to pay by simply holding your cell phone close to a contactless card reader.

Quevedo indicated that in the case of the Android smartphone solution, whose penetration level is close to 89% of the totalsmarthphonesof the Ecuadorian market, the expectation is that at least 40% of the bank's client portfolio will access this functionality, taking into account that the entity's clients exceed one million, according to the manager.

Meanwhile, Guadalupe Durán, general manager of Mastercard Ecuador, highlighted the importance of transaction security when using smart devices such as Garmin and Fitbit or Mastercard debit cards, thanks to the adoption of tokenization, a security standard that protects card information when used in contactless payments or e-commerce.

“Tokenization assigns an alternate number (token) to each business in which we are paying with the Mastercard card so that the real number of the card is not exposed at any time, avoiding fraud in case the business ishackedtheir exposed data,” Durán explained.