NFC TIMES Exclusive – With the announcement this month by large analog watchmaker Swatch of the expansion of its digital payments service SwatchPAY! to Europe, the payments wearables market could see a considerable change.
Already in China, SwatchPAY! is expected to launch in other European countries and perhaps even in North America or elsewhere in Asia-Pacific this year, NFC Times has learned. That follows its launch in Switzerland this month. What sets SwatchPAY! apart from such payments wearables services as Fitbit Pay and Garmin Pay–as well as Apple Pay and Google Pay used on smartwatches–is that SwatchPAY! is available on much cheaper analog watches that users can have provisioned with a tokenized EMV payment card after they buy the watches. And unlike smartwatches, users don’t have to worry about recharging the watch batteries every night.
Although the analog watches and other passive wearables can only be loaded with one bank payment card, practically speaking, this opens up a potentially new market for payment wearables, especially for sub-$100 analog watches, which could be provisioned right in the store after consumers buy them. Swatch has introduced four watches for its payments service so far, each priced at CHF85 (US$85.70).
