Boat partners with Mastercard to enable tap-to-pay functionality on its smartwatches: All the details

Boat

Boat has been one of the most popular domestic wearables brands in the last few years, and it is now partnering with Mastercard to make seamless payments directly from its devices. Through this collaboration, Boat smartwatch users can now use their smartwatches for contactless payments via Crest Pay, the company’s official app.

It will also allow Boat smartwatch users to tokenize their existing Mastercard debit and credit cards, enabling tap-and-pay of up to Rs 5,000 via a POS device without requiring a PIN. This feature was earlier available on select Samsung Galaxy smartwatches, with the help of the Samsung Pay app.

Initially, this feature will be available to Mastercard users from select leading banks, with plans to expand to more banks soon. The introduction of this feature highlights the growing appetite for wearable tech in India. Smartwatch shipments have surged by 73.7% in the last year, and this surge has led to a total market size of nearly 54 million devices currently.

Sameer Mehta, co-founder of Boat, commented on this partnership and added, “Our partnership with Mastercard will help widen access to a consumer base which has continuously shown eagerness to adapt to newer modes of contactless payments.” The integration of Mastercard’s trusted payment technology is expected to boost the sales of Boat and increase the usage of tap-to-pay facilities in India.