Tag: wearable technology

MasterCard announces partnership with Coin and WiseKey

MasterCard has become heavily involved in the mobile payments space and the company is looking to make this sector more secure than it has ever been. MasterCard has announced that it has partnered with Coin and WiseKey. The partnership with Coin may be unexpected, as the company has encountered trouble with financial institutions in the past in regards to its smart card, which emulated credit and debit cards. Despite this, however, MasterCard believes that its new partnerships will improve the security of mobile commerce.

Partnership aims to launch new system to ensure the security of mobile commerce

Through the partnership, a new developer program will be launched, providing access to an application program interface (API) to efficiently handle mobile transactions made through wearable devices as well as smartphones and tablets. MasterCard and Coin will work together to find ways to efficiently provide digitized card information that merchants can use to authenticate purchases. This is intended to track digital purchases for security purposes, allowing MasterCard and other companies to effectively crack down on fraud.

Wearable devices will have a role to play in the digital commerce space and MasterCard wants these devices to be safe

The partnership with WiseKey, a company that specializes in security, focuses specifically on wearable devices. These devices have yet to become mainstream, but the launch of products like Apple Watch have highlighted how they can be used to make mobile payments. MasterCard and WiseKey want to ensure that the transactions made through these devices is secure, which may improve their popularity among consumers that want to use these devices to pay for products in physical stores.

Security continues to be a main priority for those involved in mobile commerce

Security has long been a major issue in the mobile commerce space. Many consumers have avoided making mobile transactions because of security concerns, believing that their sensitive information would be put at risk. Several companies have begun improving the security of the mobile commerce space in order to increase confidence among consumers. MasterCard, as well as other financial organizations, have made significant progress in this regard over the past few years.

By the year 2020, CCS Insight is predicting that there will be 411 million wearables owned by consumers.

Analyst firm, CCS Insight has now give its wearable technology outlook an update, now predicting that by 2020, there will be 411 million smart wearable technology devices owned by consumers, and that the industry will be worth a massive $34 billion.

The firm also stated that, by the close of 2016, the wearables industry will have broken the $14 billion mark.

The predictions that it has made is that wrist-based wearable technology devices, such as many fitness trackers and smartwatches, will continue to top the list among the most popular gadgets in the category. The forecast the analyst has issued has stated that wrist-worn wearables will make up half of all sales in this category in the upcoming 12 months. Moreover, smartwatches are expected to make up 50 percent of the predicted 60 million device shipments that it expects to occur during that time.

This wearable technology update has changed since mid-2015, showing a 41 percent market share for the Apple Watch.

At that time, it said that there would be 20 million Apple Watches sold in 2015. That said, its data has now shown that during that time, the figure was strikingly lower; at only 9 million device sales.

Previously in February, another firm, Canalys, had indicated that its estimates were that in 2015, there were 12 million Apple Watches shipped. If that firm’s claims are true, that would give the company a much larger share, at about two thirds of the smartwatch marketplace. On the other hand, a week after that, Gartner released its figures and said that in 2015, the total number of smartwatch sales from all brands was 30 million. These varying numbers and measures make it evident that knowing what has already happened may be just as difficult to measure as predicting what will be occurring a few years down the road.

According to CCS Insight chief of research, Ben Wood, when discussing the wearable technology forecast report, “Given the rising consumer apathy toward smartphones, it is little wonder so many companies are chasing the rapidly growing opportunity presented by wearables. We’re particularly excited about the potential for augmented and virtual reality devices, and we predict 2016 will be a pivotal year.”