Mastercard partners with Tappy Technologies to turn your analogue watch into a contactless payment device
Mastercard teams up with Singapore-based Tappy Technologies to enable contactless payments through fashion wearables and accessories, starting with analogue watches by Timex Group.
Payments technology company Mastercard has partnered with Singapore-based wearable token service provider Tappy Technologies to enable contactless payments through regular fashion wearables and a range of accessories, starting with analogue watches by Timex Group.
Tappy CEO Wayne Leung said Tappy’s patented contactless payment chips could be embedded into virtually any fashion accessory, transforming it into a payment-enabled wearable.
By partnering with Mastercard, Tappy can integrate its technology platform with Mastercard Digital Enablement Service (MDES) to tokenise payment credentials when consumers use their mechanical or digital watch or wearable to make a purchase at any merchant that accepts Mastercard contactless payments.
Sign of the times
Addressing the media on Monday, Tappy confirmed that this service was set to be launched in India, in the coming months.
"Fashion-conscious consumers are now looking to their favourite brands to add payment capabilities to their watches, jewellery and other accessories. Our partnership with Mastercard means that fashion brands can now easily respond to consumer needs and take full advantage of this fast-growing trend,” Wayne said.
The first brand to embed these payment technologies into their wearables is Timex Group. Starting with timepieces, Timex Group will debut its payment-enabled range in the first half of 2020, across a variety of collections and straps, which will be sold separately and made available for purchase on Timex.com.
The two companies started exploring synergies through Mastercard’s Engage platform, an initiative that identifies qualified technology partners and connects them with thousands of Mastercard customers to help scale their business, quickly and efficiently.
Speaking on the partnership, Ben Gilbey, Senior Vice President, Digital Payments and Labs, Asia Pacific, Mastercard, said,
“The innovation Tappy offers, fuelled by Mastercard’s payments and tokenisation technology, is a great example of how the power of partnerships is expanding the fintech landscape. Mastercard’s exciting journey in the wearables space is a testament to our commitment to driving contactless payments.”
Apart from Engage, Mastercard’s Accelerate programme includesMastercard StartPath, which Invites later-stage startups to participate in a six-month programme, providing opportunities to scale and secure strategic investments; Mastercard Developers, which helps provide APIs for everything, empowering engineers with the ability to access Mastercard payment, security and analytics services; and the Mastercard Fintech Express programme, which on-boards partners and provides immediate access to a cross-functional team of experts to provide support to multiple work streams across product, partnerships, licensing, and legal domains.
(Edited by Teja Lele Desai)
