Visa Europe earlier this year asked five design students and graduates at Central Saint Martins, an art and design institution in the UK, to imagine how wearable contactless payment devices might look and work in 2020. Three concepts were presented this week at the Visa Europe Technology Partner Forum in London. With Visa having recently mandated that all all point of sale terminals in Europe will need to be contactless enabled by the end of 2019, these concepts could certainly become the inspiration for a new generation of wearable contactless payment devices in the near future.
According to Nick Mackie, Head of Contactless at Visa Europe: “Contactless is rapidly evolving from cards to other devices as payments become digitised, and Europeans are among the world’s earliest adopters of these new technologies. We see huge potential in the wearable payments space, which is growing in popularity – especially among the tech-savvy millennial market. Wearables take all that’s great about contactless – the speed, convenience and simplicity – and make it better still. The very essence of a wearable is its physical connection to you at any time, which by nature eliminates friction and improves security.”
Small Change helps bridge the transition between cash and digital money. As the name implies, it is focused on smaller transactions, including collecting all those coins in your pockets and jars at home onto a single device. Instead of filling your pockets or purse with coins, you load up the small puck-like device with an e-ink display and rotating bezel, with money. You can use it to pay for small transactions, lend or give money to a friend and even make deposits.
Budgeteer is also a wearable payment device worn on the wrist. It is designed to organize expenses right at the point of sale with a simple gesture. Three such gestures categorize each purchase as for work, home or yourself. These are then highlighted in different colours on your online banking statement.
The last concept does not rely on the wrist. The Thread is a brooch that goes beyond being simply a contactless payment device. Bluetooth powered and with customizeable aesthetics, it turns you into an identifiable brand ambassador.
Consumers can easily share each other’s purchases and rate them via an augmented reality app. Brands can turn positive ratings into perks such as discounts, VIP tickets and private views.
As for payments, the brooch comes with a finger vein scanner that simplifies in-store purchases.
While these are only concepts for wearable payment devices, Visa clearly believes in the future of contactless payments. At the same time, it also believes that adoption could be hastened through devices that address both convenience and fashion.
“Do you need to embed the tech you might find in an Apple Watch or an Android Wear watch into a traditional watch or piece of jewellery for it to enable payments? Obviously the answer to that is no,” Mackie concludes. “So could you have a watch that doesn’t need to be charged or you need to replace the battery every couple of years – which you have to do anyway – but that can make sophisticated electronic payments? Absolutely, that’s possible and we’re working with companies at the moment to do that.”
Sources : Visa Europe // Wareable