InComm, a payment technology company, and Mastercard are trying to make brick-and-mortar store payments seamless and secure.
Last week, InComm announced that its prepaid MyVanilla Mastercard now works on certain FitBit and Garmin devices. By partnering with the payment processor and the banks issuing the cards, InComm believes it can boost consumer security.
“These parties play an integral role in enabling MyVanilla cards in wearables and mobile wallets as they are key participants in a process called tokenization, which replaces sensitive account data with a unique identification token,” Michael Parlotto, InComm’s vice president of emerging technologies, said in an email to Bank Innovation. “Since MyVanilla card account information is not stored directly on a device, this provides more secure transaction processing.”
Users also can reload their MyVanilla card with their smartphones in participating stores. Parlotto noted that tokenization protects this near-field communication technology as well.
Putting MyVanilla on wearable devices makes carrying a physical card that much less appealing for consumers. InComm believes the move dovetails nicely with an expected increase in wearable devices worldwide. Analysis from research and advisory company Gartner predicts wearable device sales will jump almost 26 percent in 2019, reaching 225 million shipments around the world.
Parlotto hopes this launch will help InComm better understand what works for consumers in retail stores. He also believes that making the entire payment process digital and contact-less will benefit retailers.
“For InComm, this is a learning opportunity through which we will gain specific data and details on how prepaid customers will use the form factor and what they will purchase with it,” Parlotto told Bank Innovation. The in-store reloadable function is already a step in the right direction. “The easier we make it for our cardholders to quickly complete a reload at their favorite retail store, the more we are tapping into a seamless shopping experience. This is exciting for consumers who can get their transactions processed in seconds with a tap of their wrist or phone, and for retailers who can reduce the time their customers spend in line.”
The MyVanilla card works with the FitBit Charge 3, FitBit Ionic, FitBit Versa, Garmin D2 Delta, Garmin Fenix 5, Garmin Forerunner 645 and Garmin Vivoactive 3.






