MasterCard bringing wearable payments to fitness trackers including Moov

CES 2016: Atlas Wearables and Omate also set to get the payment treatment
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We said paying for stuff with other wearables other than smartwatches would grow in 2016 in our Wareable 50, and MasterCard has signalled its intent to make this a reality by announcing a partnership with Coin that lets you grab a bottle of water on your run, sans wallet.

While you will have no doubt heard of MasterCard, Coin is a company that's being working on slimming down your wallet with one single card-like device that uses Bluetooth and has NFC tech to enable tap-to-pay to make contactless payments.

The partnership will work with Coin bringing its hardware and software expertise to the table with MasterCard providing its own digital enable service to help bring everything all together.

Essential reading: How wearables will take over your life in 2016

The first devices to benefit from the partnership have already been revealed and include our 2015 fitness tracker of the year Moov, Atlas Wearables, who make a pretty impressive gym-focused fitness tracker ,and Omate, a company that hit Indiegogo recently with its 3G-enabled Omate Rise watch.

Right now, payments from fitness trackers are pretty rare. The Microsoft Band 2 will let you buy a cup of coffee in Starbucks and the Jawbone UP4 enables mobile payments for American Express Card members.

With Samsung Pay set to spread to more countries this year and Apple Pay's presence continuing to grow, it's going be a big year for ditching the wallet.

MasterCard bringing wearable payments to fitness trackers including Moov


How we test



Michael Sawh

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Michael Sawh has been covering the wearable tech industry since the very first Fitbit landed back in 2011. Previously the resident wearable tech expert at Trusted Reviews, he also marshaled the features section of T3.com.

He also regularly contributed to T3 magazine when they needed someone to talk about fitness trackers, running watches, headphones, tablets, and phones.

Michael writes for GQ, Wired, Coach Mag, Metro, MSN, BBC Focus, Stuff, TechRadar and has made several appearances on the BBC Travel Show to talk all things tech. 

Michael is a lover of all things sports and fitness-tech related, clocking up over 15 marathons and has put in serious hours in the pool all in the name of testing every fitness wearable going. Expect to see him with a minimum of two wearables at any given time.


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