The Heritage Bank in Queensland has beaten the big 4 banks within Australia in the race for wearable tech. The wearable tech has been given to 40 Heritage Bank customers and allows them to pay with a chip on a wristband, which is also waterproof.
The wristband features the Visa Paywave chip that allows people to swipe their cards over a payment terminal. It still has the $100 limit that is required for PIN-less transactions, which is lucky in case of loss or theft. It’s essentially a wearable debit card.
The chief officer for Heritage Bank Peter Lock has said that convenience is a huge factor for getting the wearable tech to customers as soon as possible:
“So whether you go out for morning run or a daily swim, or jump out of the car with children on your hip, you’ll no longer need to take your wallet or your phone,” he said.
“You can simply strap this new payment device to your wrist to make payments directly from your savings account.”
Lock has also said that:
“As well as our new wearable device, we’ve also developed our own mobile phone contactless payment app, have just released a newly updated internet banking platform, and we’re currently upgrading all of our branches with new more digitally-focused designs,”.
Sounds like the Heritage Bank has a lot of plans when it comes to digital tech and the positives it can have when it comes to users and their banking experience.
However, just because Heritage Bank are the first organisation to do it, that doesn’t mean that any of the Big 4 should be ruled out when it comes to wearable tech and banking. Westpac, according to Business Insider, are also working on a wearable tech that customers can wear but nothing has been released as of yet. However, Westpac recently announced that Samsung Pay is now available through Westpac, they just don’t have any wearable tech out yet. Keep an eye out!
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