The new feature on Garmin's latest smartwatch enables consumers to make highly secure contactless payments at near-field communication-enabled (NFC) point-of-sale (POS) retail locations, adding a powerful new capability to one of the most complete smartwatches on the market for the active consumer.

"With Garmin Pay, vívoactive 3 wearers now have the freedom to leave their phone and wallet at home when they go to run or work out, and still be able to make purchases wherever their day takes them," said Dan Bartel, Garmin Vice President of worldwide sales. "The vívoactive 3 is an indispensable tool for any active lifestyle and we appreciate the support that card issuing banks have provided to make this exciting new feature available to their cardholders."

Garmin Pay is available on the vívoactive 3, which was announced by Garmin at the IFA Consumer Electronic Unlimited show in Berlin, Germany on August 31, 2017. The new contactless payment capability is powered by the FitPayTM payment platform and available initially for Mastercard cardholders from numerous issuing banks and credit unions including BECU, Capital One, First Tech Federal Credit Union, and U.S. Bank in the United States, and internationally through Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Cornèrcard, Sberbank of Russia, and Swiss Bankers Prepaid Services Ltd. This includes the initial launch day participants. Additional networks and issuers will be added soon. View supported country, payment network and issuing bank information at Garmin.com/garminpay/banks.

"We are excited that Mastercard cardholders will be the first consumers to make contactless payments using their Garmin vívoactive 3 smartwatches," said Kiki Del Valle, Senior Vice President, Commerce for Every Device. "Working with leading issuers across four markets is just the beginning of delivering more choice in how consumers can make payments that match their digital lifestyles."

"Bringing a powerful feature like Garmin Pay to market requires building an entire ecosystem to enable it," said Michael Orlando, President of Fit Pay, Inc. and COO of NXT-ID. "By supporting the launch of Garmin Pay and the FitPay platform, Mastercard and its participating issuing banks have shown a real commitment to making payments more convenient for consumers and to reducing friction in the payment process."

The FitPay platform provides Garmin Pay and the vívoactive 3 with contactless payment capabilities and full digital wallet functionality within the Garmin Connect app, enabling consumers to simply tap and pay with the smartwatch at NFC-enabled POS terminals using an existing credit or debit card account. FitPay's proprietary technology platform uses tokenization, a payment security technology that replaces cardholders' account information with a unique digital identifier (a 'token'), to transact highly secure contactless payment and authentication services. FitPay leverages Embedded Secure Element (eSE) chip technology within devices to offer a payment solution that is very power and memory efficient and does not need to refresh a token once it is issued. This frees devices from needing to be tethered to a host device or connected to the Internet to transact payments, creating a convenient and completely frictionless payment experience.