Barclaycard bPay Stuffs Contactless Payment Tech Into Jewellery & Watches

Contactless payments are coming to high-street smart jewellery and watches due to Barclaycard agreeing to provide its bPay payment technology to DCK Group and Tappy Technologies Limited.

Both companies will integrate bPay’s contactless payment technology, which is supported by Visa, into their smart wearables.

Barclaycard’s bPay technology was effectively a contactless payments system that offered an alternative to Apple Pay and Android Pay. It’s range comprises of a wristband, fob, sticker and loop designed to facilitate rapid contactless payments.

The company already has existing partnerships to see its technology integrated into other products, but with the new brace of partnerships, bPay forges deeper into the mass market appeal of high-street products.

On the high-street

DCK Group, which sells jewellery in concessions in what Barclaycard describes as “some of the UK’s leading high street retailers”, will integrate bPay into its Tutch range of jewellery, bringing the contactless payment tech to a market that goes beyond just smartwatches and phones.

Tappy Technologies Limited, a payments technology brand which embeds contactless payment functionality into watches, will uses its partnership with Barclaycard to offer bPay to its customers.

The duo of partnerships is aimed at complimenting other products bPay is currently used in, and will expand the scope to the type of wearable technology people can use to make rapid card-free payments.

“Over the 40 years that I have been in the jewellery business, the industry has seen many changes and as a business we have thrived on being ahead of the trends with both innovation and design.

“Our partnership with Barclaycard has allowed us to revolutionise the wearable tech market, combining the knowledge and security of a major bank with the design and expertise of the best jewellery designers in the business to launch an affordable, functional and desirable range of fashion led jewellery,” said Alan Witzenfeld, DCK chairman, extolling the virtues of such a partnership.

For developers and startups looking to create products with contactless payment technology, these partnerships indicate that Barclaycard is keen to push its technology out into the wider world, whereas the likes of Apple Pay seem to embrace the idea of a walled garden ecosystem.

As the adoption of contactless payments continues to grow, it will have to be seen whether an open or closed approach to payment technologies is the best way encourage people to move away from more traditional card and cash transactions.

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