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Holders of Discover cards can now add their cards to the Garmin Pay mobile wallet for Garmin International Inc. wearable devices to make contactless payments, Discover Financial Services and Garmin announced Monday.
Today’s announcement means that Discover is joining Visa and Mastercard as a payment option for Garmin Pay wallet users. Once a payment card is added to Garmin’s virtual wallet, which can be done through the Garmin Connect mobile app, users can tap and pay with a few touches on the device.
Garmin Pay runs on FitPay technology from Nxt-ID Inc.’s Fit Pay Inc. subsidiary, including near-field communication for contactless transactions. General-purpose mobile wallets for smart phones such as Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay also use NFC. Most U.S. merchant locations now have the capability to accept NFC at the point-of-sale, though many merchants haven’t yet activated the feature.
Garmin Pay is available on Olathe, Kan.-based Garmin’s latest smart watches, the vívoactive 3 series, and new GPS running watches, the Forerunner 645, Forerunner 645 Music, and fēnix 5 Plus series, as well as the D2 Delta aviator watch series.
“Consumers are constantly on the go and our goal is to make it as simple and seamless as possible for our cardmembers to pay with their Discover card, including on IoT [Internet of Things] and wearable devices,” Shaida Lynch, vice president of e-business at Riverwoods, Ill.-based Discover, said in a news release. “Now someone can be out on a jog or running errands and the ability to pay with Discover from their Garmin watch is just a quick tap away.”
Melbourne, Fla.-based Nxt-ID had planned to spin off its payment assets, including Fit Pay, into an independent company known as PartX Inc. late last year. The spinoff was delayed because of financial issues and is now expected early this year.
