Tap-and-pay technology is spreading through South Africa fast – whether you’ve already had an opportunity to pay for your petrol by tapping your bank card or buying some milk using your smartphone’s NFC. However, soon you won’t even need your phone or card to do such a purchase.
FNB has announced that a number of Fitbit and Garmin wearable devices are now primed for tap-and-go functionality, allowing FNB customers to simply use fitness tracker or smartwatch to make transactions.
This is possible due to the fact that specific Garmin and Fitbit wearables have a ‘wallet’ feature, which makes them suitable for the service. A customer simply selects the wallet feature on the device and taps it on the appropriate POS device, and voila – the transaction is done.
And if you’re concerned at the security issues surrounding using something as easy as tapping your wrist on a card machine, you’ll be glad to know that encryption and tokenisation (effectively a ‘middle-man’ function that secures and encrypts information) are used in every tap-and-go transaction, making its security measures quite formidable.
An additional security measure is related to the actual device – if it’s taken off or removed, the device’s passcode must be re-entered to activate the payment option from the wallet again. The device will also only stay authenticated and active for 24 hours at a time, or until it’s removed from the wearer’s wrist – so there’s a very short window for anything to go wrong.
The service is available to any existing FNB/RMB clients who have downloaded the respective Fitbit/Garmin apps onto their phones, after which, linking a selected bank card on the app will allow users to shop easily and quickly!
If you’re looking to get yourself a Fitbit or Garmin device, check out the wide range of wearable tech available on PriceCheck!
