Will smart watches and glasses drive mobile payments?

Consumers could soon pay with their watches and check bank balances via Google Glass.

Eying your balance with St. George Bank

St. George Bank, a subsidiary of Westpac, is conducting trials with wearable devices including Google Glass.

Building banking apps for wearable devices is “all about being in our customers’ eco-system and making sure we’re able to deliver the service they are looking across a variety of channels,” according to St. George CIO Dhiren Kulkarni.

“It may not be the main platform people use to do their banking, but it is another option, and that’s what we’re about — customer choice,” he says.

St. George Bank sees wearable tech as effective for basic functions such as checking account balances and locating bank branches, Kulkarni says.

Read more: St. George Bank pings branch customers with iBeacon

“We expect there will be a lot of people using mobile banking applications on wearable devices because it will help to make banking quicker, easier and faster.

“However, in most cases it will be a secondary device to a smartphone. We anticipate the bulk of transactions with still be completed on a smartphone and more simple tasks such as checking your account balance will be the more common transactions on wearable devices.”

The amount of information that can be displayed on a wearable is limited by its smaller screen size, notes the CIO.

“With this in mind, and from our trials, the type of information people will likely view on a wearable device needs to be simple and quick — such as checking your account balance or viewing a map to locate your nearest branch and ATM.”

Pocketbook

While St. George may currently see wearable as a secondary device, Pocketbook co-founder Bosco Tan says wearables may well replace the smartphone in the future.

The Sydney startup, which has a financial management website and mobile apps showing users all their bank accounts in one place, is currently experimenting with Google Glass.

Banks are focusing on the smartphone now because it is the dominant device for users, says Tan. But that could change in the future.

“I see [the smartphone] as the 'Generation 1' wearable,” he says. “Wearables are able to achieve potentially more than a smartphone because it’s more in context.”

By sensing where the user is and what they are looking at — and then bringing in picture and voice recognition — smart glasses can quickly provide the user with relevant information about what they are doing, says Tan.

Pocketbook is testing several concepts, including detecting that a user is looking at a potential purchase and showing the user whether it fits into his or her budget, as well as providing directions to the nearest ATM and quickly showing a bank balance when the user looks at a credit card.

Pocketbook is developing for Glass now because it believes that being one of the first apps available on the wearable will give the startup a competitive advantage, says Tan.

“We want to make Pocketbook like the Fitbit for your money.”

Next page: Analysts sceptical on wearable payments

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