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Boat smartwatch users will now be able to use tap and pay functionality at eligible point-of-sale (POS) terminals in India, following an announcement made at the Global Fintech Fest (GFF) 2024 on Friday (August 30). For this move, the Indian smart wearable brand is partnering with Mastercard, enabling payment services on credit and debit cards from supported banks. This functionality can be accessed via boAt’s official application, secured by Mastercard’s tokenisation capabilities.
Tap and Pay on Boat Smartwatches
In a press release, Boat announced that its payment-enabled smartwatches can be used to carry out payments via tap and pay method at POS terminals. For transactions up to Rs. 5,000, no PIN will be required. Security will be maintained courtesy of cryptograms which power Mastercard’s device tokenisation capability.
Powering payments through wearable devices for Indian consumers, we’re thrilled to collaborate with @RockWithboAt to bring quick, secure tap & pay capabilities to boAt smartwatches. Backed by Mastercard device tokenization, this cost-effective solution will contribute towards the… pic.twitter.com/AYilfQlzKN
— Mastercard India (@mastercardindia) August 29, 2024
At launch, Sameer Mehta, Co-Founder and CEO of Boat said, “Our partnership with Mastercard will help widen access to a consumer base which has continuously shown eagerness to adapt to newer modes of contactless payments.”
The company says tap and pay functionality will be available to Mastercard cardholders from some of India’s leading banks. It will be expanded to other banks in due time. This initiative comes after the country’s wearable market experienced a 34 percent growth, leading to a 73.7 percent surge in smartwatch shipments in 2023.
Other Announcements at GFF 2024
Apart from Mastercard, Bharti Airtel and Google Pay also made announcements at the event. Collaborating with Noise, it introduced a smartwatch with support for National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) technology. It comes with an integrated RuPay chip that enables transactions from the user’s wrist. Similar to Boat’s new tap and pay functionality, Airtel smartwatch users can also make payments at contactless terminals, with a limit of Rs. 5,000 without entering their PIN.
Meanwhile, Google announced a new feature dubbed UPI Circle on Google Pay. It enables the user’s loved ones to carry out digital payments without needing to link their own bank accounts. Users can either set a monthly limit within which the secondary users can make transactions without requiring approval, or approve each transaction each time.