Wearable Tech 2021: The Future Is Now – An SPA Insight Paper – April 2021

In July of 2017, the Smart Payment Association (SPA) published Wearable Tech: A Growing Payment Opportunity. With sales of wearables booming, the paper explored the huge potential of a world in which open- and closed-loop payment technology could be integrated into a wide range of smart devices.

From initiatives like bPay Loop and Android Wear 2.0 through to the complexity involved in integrating open-loop payments into wearables, the first edition of our Wearable Tech paper sought to provide an overview of the major factors influencing consumer adoption and issuer support.

Four years on, and in the wake of dramatic changes to both consumer technology and the world in general, we wanted to revisit some of those issues with a fresh perspective. We wanted to understand how the market had grown, which new innovations had been driving it forwards and, crucially, whether some of the obstacles that we’d reported on in 2017 had been overcome.

To aid with that, we sought the views of SPA members with their fingers firmly on the pulse of wearable payments. Contributions from companies including Thales, G+D and IDEMIA offered invaluable insight into the new technologies, trends and challenges that define the wearable payments market of 2021.

As wearable technology grows smarter and more versatile, and as consumer acceptance of new ways to pay continues to rise, the opportunities for issuers will only become more significant. This paper provides an updated view on the fast-moving wearable payments market, and the actions that issuers need to take today in order to be ready for tomorrow.