Payments

Wells Fargo is letting cardholders pay with FitBit

  • Wells Fargo rolled out FitBit Pay at NFC-enabled retail checkout counters
  • Wells' rollout of FitBit payments is another way the bank can encourage customers to make wearables payments, since adoption is still quite low
close

Email a Friend

Wells Fargo is letting cardholders pay with FitBit
Wells Fargo is letting cardholders pay with their wrists. On Thursday it began supporting FitBit Pay payments, which customers can use by waving their FitBit smartwatch, called the FitBit Ionic, at merchants whose payment terminals accept NFC. Wells is the latest among a series of financial institutions to roll out wearable payments through FitBit. In September Bank of America made ATM access and contactless payments from FitPay wearable devices available to its credit and debit cardholders. ANZ, a major bank in Australia and New Zealand, followed last month. On Monday Dutch bankABN AMRO began testing “wearables as a payment method” with 500 current account customers. FitBit also counts American Express, Capital One, U.S. Bank, Royal Bank of Canada, UBS, Santander and Starling Bank among its supported cards. Wearable payments could be a nice source of data and an extra security measure for banks, according a Deloitte report. Because of devices’ sensors, communication devices, servers and analytics engines, they don't just store payment information and authenticate users, they also collect data, couple location data with the wearers' previous spending habits to minimize the likelihood of a fraudulent transaction and can communicate, aggregate and analyze the data before allowing informed actions to take place. It's the latest in a series of moves from Wells Fargo to roll out contactless banking options for its customers. In October it began rolling out contactless ATMs with the goal of making 13,000-ATMs fleet contactless by 2019. It's also a first mover in the contactless movement among U.S. banks, which are increasingly planning contactless card rollouts. Recent research projects that by 2021, 229.6 million contactless card shipments will be made to the U.S., dwarfing the 2018 projection of just 78.4 million. NFC payments are not at the level they need to be, said Aite Group senior analyst Thad Peterson. But banks are still experimenting. Wearable payments could be a natural extension of contactless card payments, particularly as more merchants install NFC-enabled payment terminals at the point of sale to support mobile payments and digital wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay, for example. "Why wouldn’t you just walk in and the store will have your card on file and recognizes your face or voice — it’s eliminated the idea that you have to tap your card and you can walk in and pay seamlessly and that’s where we’re going,” Forrester principal analyst Brendan Miller told Tearsheet. But banks still don't know when they'll take off, especially since consumers still haven't fully adopted tap-to-pay mobile payments and still pull out their plastic cards. In the U.S., customer adoption of contactless payments lags behind markets like the U.K., Australia and Canada, where “riding the contactless wave” has been a defining slogan for payment modernization. BI_chart 2018 may not be the year contactless payments go mainstream in the U.S., given the success of contactless payments in other markets, more institutions rolling out connected-device payment capabilities, and and more aggressive marketing from institutions, momentum is building around contactless, Peterson added. Others note that as the traditional retail checkout gets phased out, consumers will likely follow suit. Tanaya Macheel contributed reporting.

0 comments on “Wells Fargo is letting cardholders pay with FitBit”

Lending, Payments

Can lenders improve the financial health of consumers through design?

  • Design can play a critical role in improving consumers' financial health when it comes to lending.
  • Research by the Financial Health Network shows that areas like defaults, making payments, and borrowing the right amount can be significantly improved through behavioral design principles, to ensure customers make decisions that improve their financial well-being.
Rabab Ahsan | May 26, 2023
Payments

5 questions with Zip CEO Larry Diamond

  • Payment act as a beachhead for financial services firms to more deeply serve customers, according to Zip's Larry Diamond.
  • We spoke to the payment firm's CEO about his new focus on the US and the future of the company.
Zachary Miller | May 15, 2023
Payments

Microsoft brings payments for businesses on Teams

  • Microsoft has collaborated with Stripe and PayPal to enable in-app payments for small businesses on Teams.
  • Connecting or signing up for one service – Stripe or PayPal – is required to set up the Teams Payments app, with support for GoDaddy in the cards.
Sara Khairi | May 11, 2023
Payments

Tokenization, programmable payments, inclusion: Unpacking near-term trends in the payments ecosystem

  • Very little appears to be staying the same where the payments industry stands in 2023 compared to where it’s headed in the next few years.
  • Tokenization beyond cards, borderless rails, credit for the underbanked, and the proliferation of payment acceptance options are some of the near-term trends in the payments ecosystem, suggests a new Mastercard report.
Sara Khairi | May 10, 2023
Payments

As Amazon Pay now offers Citi Flex Pay, will it help Amazon close the gap with PayPal?

  • Amazon has partnered with Citi Flex Pay to offer eligible card members the ability to pay over time at merchants who accept Amazon Pay.
  • Will gaining access to Citi's card network enable Amazon Pay to gain an edge over competitors like PayPal?
Rabab Ahsan | May 05, 2023
More Articles