One ring to pay them all

USING a fashionable ring is all it takes to make a payment.

Leaving home without your phone, card, wallet or cash will become possible in Australia with the rollout of the country’s first payment ring to “tap and go” on the run.

Mastercard’s senior vicepresident of digital and new payment flows Matt Barr said this is just the beginning of far more innovative and fancy ways to pay in 2018.

As for security, anyone could pick up your ring and wear it to make a contactless payment of less than $100, but like a card, users need to be careful about where they leave it.

“We won’t take any solution to market where there are safety issues,’’ he said.

“In the case of the ring, it’s going to be attached to a banking account and banks can put in controls where they can stop your card (or ring), make spending limits on accounts and in certain merchant categories.”

The consumer is protected from fraud and unauthorised payments on the wearables will be reimbursed if it’s proven the transaction was not made by the account holder themselves.

Bankwest is the first bank in Australia to roll out a ring to be used to pay, dubbed the Halo, which is waterproof to 50m.

The waterproof ring is linked to a customer’s transaction card and can be used to make a contactless payment by simply being flashed over a contactless payment terminal.

But there’s a cost. Customers must pay at least $29 for the new wearable.

It’s understood some of the nation’s largest banks are among those considering rollout of a ring payment device.

Payment devices have already been implemented in other items globally, including sunglasses and scarfs, alongside other wearables on the market, including smart watches.

Strategic intelligence firm RFi’s Alex Boorman said the big four banks all offer various types of wearables and more of these new-age devices will continue to trickle on to the market.

“There is the view now that some consumers might step over mobile payments to wearables,’’ he said.

“When payments are successful, the uptake is about moving a friction point for a consumer, so offering them something that’s convenient and reliable and works in a all circumstances.”

He said these devices remain at the moment a novelty, but will eventually become something “meaningful for consumers” to use every day.