Visa brings NFC to analog with Swatch mobile payments watch

Much like contactless bank cards, then, someone else would be able to make contactless payments if they had the watch on their wrist-unlike, say, with an iPhone where Apple Pay requires Touch ID confirmation to authorise a payment. With the wearable device market increasingly gaining momentum, however, Swatch made a decision to join the race with its own piece of smart wearable tech. The Swatch Bellamy will only work for Visa cardholders in the United States, Brazil and Switzerland.

Swatch is launching a new watch that you can buy things with – but it’s not a smartwatch.

Of course, despite these mobile payment capabilities, the Swatch Bellamy is far from being a smartwatch.

Swatch signed deals with both Visa Inc. and Visa Europe to enable the tap and pay functionality for the Bellamy in the aforementioned markets. “Swatch Bellamy will open a new era of connected commerce, as mobile payment acceptance continues to increase around the world”.

The company showed off the NFC-equipped Bellamy wristwatch in China back in October, with a sticker price of 580 yuan (US$91). The watch doesn’t connect to the internet, but uses a near-field communication chip (NFC) to make payments at contactless terminals. Likewise, there isn’t a firm launch date yet – Swatch is only saying “early 2016”.

Indeed, without some of the other sensors aboard a smartwatch, some people might worry about how secure the device is-and Swatch doesn’t offer any details just yet about authentication.