NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Fitbit Pay has entered its 21st market, with the launch this week in Thailand with two of the country’s top four banks, Kasikorn Bank and Siam Commercial Bank, along with credit card issuer Krungthai Card, or KTC, supporting the digital payments service.
It’s been a little bit more than a year since Fitbit Pay launched in the U.S., and as with the competing Garmin Pay service, which is in 25 markets, many of Fitbit Pay’s 21 markets have only a small handful of issuers participating, many of them small banks or other issuers. That includes Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Poland, South Africa and Singapore. Fitbit also has enabled just two devices so far to support Fitbit Pay, the Fitbit Ionic and the affordably priced Versa, both smartwatches.
Next month, Fitbit plans to begin selling its first nonsmartwatch supporting its payments service, with its Charge 3 health and fitness tracker. But NFC functionality will only be available on a Special Edition version of the wristband, and it will retail at about US$170. That is $20 more than regular versions of the Charge 3, which went on sale last week.
