ABN Amro starts contactless payment via wearables

After a pilot program of a year, ABN Amro will start with contactless payment via wearables. The bank offers on its site an overview of the wearables that customers can use, including smartwatches from Garmin and rings from K-ring.

For the time being, the ABN Amro payment option works with watches from Garmin, via Garmin Pay, and from Olympic. In addition, the payment option works with rings from K-ring, and with smartwatch, bracelet and key ring from LAKS. Mondaine watches and support for Fitbit Pay will follow soon, for wearables from that manufacturer. In all cases, the underlying technology for contactless payment via wearables with NFC comes from Mastercard.

Customers of the bank must register their wearable with their personal card number and activate the ‘digital debit card’ for use via internet banking. The costs for that pass are 50 euro cents per month. Payment can then be made via all contactless payment terminals, even for amounts of more than 25 euros, although entering a PIN code is also required.

At the beginning of 2018, ABN Amro started a pilot with five hundred customers. Of these, 78 percent indicated that they regard the wearable as their preferred means of payment. Rabobank customers have been able to link wearables with Garmin Pay support to their account since the end of October last year.