Payments are becoming an important factor in the growth of the wearables market – it’s estimated that 62 percent of wearable device shipments will include payments functionality by 20201. For implementers, there are many options for incorporating payments into wearables that can impact deploying and managing these devices. To provide concrete guidance for implementers, the Secure Technology Alliance developed a white paper to provide a high-level overview of the landscape for payment-enabled wearables, and to discuss key technology and deployment considerations.
The white paper “Implementation Considerations for Contactless Payment-Enabled Wearables,” was developed by the Secure Technology Alliance Payments Council, and can be downloaded at https://www.securetechalliance.org/publications-implementation-considerations-for-contactless-payment-enabled-wearables/.
“Payment-enabled wearables offer a lot of benefits, like convenience for consumers, and new business opportunities for device manufacturers, service providers and the payments industry,” said Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Secure Technology Alliance. “In order to help the industry take advantage of these benefits and successfully enable wearables for payments, the Secure Technology Alliance has created this resource to provide guidance for the most common implementations, and discusses the key considerations for successful implementations of payments-enabled wearables.”
The paper focuses on a subset of wearables and payment processes that encompass the most common implementations of wearables today, and discusses:
- Potential target applications for payment-enabled wearables
- Benefits of payment-enabled wearables
- Examples and differences of active and passive wearables
- Payment enablement and deployment considerations
- Lifecycle management
- Certifications, approvals, branding and interoperability requirements
This white paper was developed by the Secure Technology Alliance Payments Council, whose primary goal is to inform and educate the market about the means of improving the security of the payments infrastructure and enhancing the payments experience. The group brings together payments industry stakeholders to work on projects related to implementing secured payments across all payment channels and payment technologies.
Payments Council members participating in the development of the white paper included: American Express; Cardtek; Discover Financial Services; G+D Mobile Security; Gemalto; IDEMIA; Infineon Technologies; IQ Devices; Mastercard; Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA); Multos International; and NXP Semiconductors.
Additional information on the Payments Council can be found at https://www.securetechalliance.org/activities-councils-payments/.
