NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – In addition to the NFC secure elements that NXP Semiconductors is providing to wearables maker Garmin for its vívoactive 3 and forthcoming Forerunner 645 smartwatches supporting Garmin Pay, NXP is also supplying its “Loader Service,” a technology that the chip maker has been pushing for more than three years.
NXP, with early support from Mastercard, has touted the Loader Service as a way to make it as easy for consumers to securely download their debit and credit cards to their wearables as downloading mobile apps. While that promise has fallen short so far, NXP has not given up. It has also targeted smaller smartphone makers using the Android OS, especially in China, with the Loader Service.
As the largest supplier of NFC embedded chips globally, NXP has a lot riding on the payments wearables market taking off. To date, however, that market has been disappointing.