Swiss watch giant Swatch Group has unveiled the second generation of its chip-embedded watches for mobile payments in China.
The new NCF-enabled watch, dubbed Swatch Pay, has been rolled out with the support from UnionPay and 11 Chinese banks.
The banks supporting Swatch Pay include: Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of China, Postal Savings Bank of China, China CITIC Bank, Hua Xia Bank, China Minsheng Bank, China Merchants Bank, Industrial Bank, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, Ping An Bank, and Bank of Xi’an.
Powered by China UnionPay’s cloud-based payments technology, the new watches can be linked with credit cards and debit cards.
After buying a Swatch Pay watch, customers will have to download an in-store app and complete a scan to activate it, with the tokenisation process taking a ‘few minutes’.
Subsequently, users can then add card details from participating banks and make contactless purchases at shops that have POS terminals with China UnionPay QuickPass.
Swatch Group CEO Nick Hayek said: “Swatch has been a pioneer in contactless technology since 1993 with introduction of Swatch Access. Now it’s logical to be a pioneer with regard to bank cards as well. We are very happy about launching Swatch Pay.”
The Swiss watch maker said that Swatch Pay will be available at selected Swatch stores in 28 Chinese cities starting 27 July 2017.
