With Fitbit Ionic, health and fitness enthusiasts who use the device will be able to add their eligible cards to their fitness smartwatch and pay by tapping their device near a contactless terminal at more than 6.6 million merchant locations globally. Starting 28 Aug 2017, users can pre-order the Fitbit device on the company’s website, for general availability in October 2017. The payment functionality will initially be supported in the US with participating issuer banks and will expand to other markets across the globe.
Through the network’s tokenization service, Mastercard generates a unique alternate number or token for the 16-digit card number. The token number is not only different from the card number but is also, on its own, useless when trying to perform a transaction via a different device.
Visa has made a similar announcement, stating that it will enablie Visa payments on Fitbit’s smartwatch.
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