Wells Fargo Throws Support Behind Fitbit Pay

Wearable tech looked like a fantastic idea, three or four years ago; the notion was that it could even go on to supplant smartphones, and with good reason. Who would want to carry around a smartphone when it could simply be worn on the wrist, or even forearm? That notion never really panned out, but there are still some attempts being made. Wells Fargo is behind one of the most recent such attempts, throwing support behind Fitbit Pay.

With Wells Fargo support for Fitbit Pay, Wells Fargo customers can use the payments system at any location where the payment terminals accept near-field communications (NFC) payments. Fitbit Pay recently made the jump to the first smartwatch the company released, the Fitbit Ionic, which should give it a little extra room to run in the market.

Additionally, thanks to the new support, transactions are all monitored via Wells Fargo’s array of risk and fraud detection mechanisms, making the transactions much more secure. If there are unauthorized transactions that take place, prompt reporting of same includes access to the Zero Liability protocols, where customers are reimbursed for said transactions.

All told, this is a pretty nice setup, though it’s easy to think this is just too little, too late. Wearable tech use isn’t exactly going great guns; a Gartner estimate suggests smartwatch sales will hit almost 81 million units by 2021, about 16 percent of the total for wearable devices in general. Given that there are approaching eight billion people on the planet right now, that suggests a lot of people who don’t care about wearables at all, let alone smartwatches. However, given that Wells Fargo now has more active mobile customers than online ones—it crossed that Rubicon back in May, reports note—this might be a better idea than some might expect.

Still, if such a move means even one more customer for Wells Fargo, it’s likely worth doing. Such a move isn’t likely to cost Wells Fargo much, and expanding its reach should prove worthwhile in the end. It may not pull a lot of extra cash out of this move, but every little bit really does help.