Popular and Visa enable contactless payments on Fitbit and Garmin watches

Banco Popular Dominicano and Visa, a global leader in digital payments, announced the incorporation of contactless payment functionality through Fitbit or Garmin sports watches linked to a Visa Debit Popular card.

This innovation expands the options available to Banco Popular customers to purchase using this technology in bracelets or smartwatches quickly and with data security.

The association of the Popular Visa Debit card with the device is done directly in the Fitbit or Garmin application, exhausting a final verification process through SMS messages.

Short-range payments through mobile devices are a trend among young consumers, especially the Z generation and millennials, who demand digital alternatives to make their physical purchases.

AZUL terminals enabled

In relation, the more than 37,000 payment terminals of AZUL, a commercial brand of Servicios Digitales Popular, a subsidiary of Grupo Popular, have enabled the NFC (Near Field Communication) or contactless payment technology in different types of businesses in the country, where Popular customers can make use of this technology with their Fitbit or Garmin watches.

With this step, Popular becomes the eleventh bank in Latin America to have this technology.

Technology at the service of customers

In developing this functionality, the bank collaborated with Visa’s team of experts, who accompanied the project through its Tokenization Service, which provides the highest standard of security in data storage.

In this way, the cardholder’s information is never revealed during the transaction since this technology replaces it with a unique digital identifier or “token,” avoiding exposing the most sensitive information.

In this regard, Mr. Christopher Paniagua, executive president of Popular, framed this innovation as part of the financial organization’s leadership in the digital transformation of Dominican banking, “constantly introducing new technologies to improve our customers’ experiences.”

Banco Popular was a pioneer in the country in offering contactless payment technology in cards and its App Popular mobile application; meanwhile, AZUL became the first Dominican acquirer to deploy NFC terminals that accept these contactless payments.

“We are excited about this milestone marked today with Banco Popular Dominicano, as now all Popular Visa Debit cardholders will be able to enjoy the benefits of contactless payments such as speed, convenience, security and ease when paying with their favorite sports watches,” said Sofia Antor, general manager of Visa in the Dominican Republic.

“Transactions made with these devices and providing additional convenience feature Visa’s latest security technology by being tokenized. This technology provides one of the most effective ways to protect payment credential information and has enabled an unprecedented move towards digital commerce through more secure payment experiences,” said Antor.

Among the solutions of these tools, Fitbit has the Fitbit Sense, Versa 3, Versa 2, Versa, Ionic, the special edition Charge 3, Charge 4, and Charge 5.

In the case of Gaming, it offers the functionality through the models Vivoactive (4, 4s, 3, 3 Music), Forerunner (645, 645 Music, 745, 945), Fenix 5 Plus (X and S), Fenix 6 (Pro Solar, Solar, Pro, Sapphire, S Pro Solar, S Pro, S Sapphire, S, X Pro, X Sapphire, X Pro Solar), Venu (VenuSq, VenuSqMusic), D2 Delta, Legacy, Vivomove.