Today’s consumers increasingly expect the brands they do business with to offer a seamless experience across channels, and that extends to payments. To accelerate the integration of payments with Internet of Things devices, such as wearables, CO-OP Financial Services is making wearable payments support available to its credit union clients.
Supporting wearable payments will become increasingly important as consumer demand for the technology increases. According to a Visa study, 83% of consumers want to use a connected device to enhance the payments experience. By supporting payments integration into devices like fitness bands by Garmin and Fitbit, CO-OP is addressing that demand.
“As modern consumers experience the digital transformation of once routine tasks, they expect financial institutions to keep up,” said Nish Modi, Vice President Digital & Business Intelligence Strategy and Product, for CO-OP. “CO-OP wants to help our credit union partners exceed that expectation by giving them easy, affordable access to seamless digital payment tools.”
CO-OP Wearables Enablement Now Available to All Clients
CO-OP was among the first group of service providers to support MasterCard’s payments services for the Garmin and Fitbit wearable devices. Enablement on these devices is now available to all credit union clients that process payments with CO-OP.
“Members – and revenues – gravitate to those financial providers that demonstrate seemingly effortless integration with the hottest brands and the newest technology,” said Modi. “Historically, that hasn’t been easy for credit unions. CO-OP is changing that.
“By deploying products like wearable payments, we are helping credit unions offer emerging banking and payment products often before members even start asking for them,” Modi continued. “CO-OP’s scale, partnership capabilities and growing digital-first competencies are attracting big-name players to the credit union movement. We’re helping cooperatives of all sizes tap into some of the most exciting, progressive and fan-favorite digital experiences.”
The Growing Wearable Payments Market
A number of market factors are contributing to the increasing consumer demand for wearable options at checkout. These include the popularity of wearable technology itself, as well as the advancement of point-of-sale technology like near field communication (NFC) and mobile point of sale (mPOS).
These trends and others are among the reasons the global mobile payment technology market is expected to be worth $1,773.17 billion by the end of 2024. The devices consumers will use to leverage MPT are not limited to wearables and smartphones either, Modi points out.
“Cars, parking meters, refrigerators and water meters — anything with an Internet connection may soon be engineered to help consumers automate the payments process,” said Modi. “Credit unions that can support this Internet of Paying Things will be in the best position to earn digital consumer business and affection.”
Learn more about CO-OP’s Digital Payments Solutions here: https://campaigns.co-opfs.org/digital-payments-solutions/
And join us at THINK 18, May 7-10 in Chandler Arizona to learn more about the future of digital payments and other important topics during out Power Sprint sessions.
The original article The Wearable Payments Revolution is Here can be found on Insight Vault.
