thx for the link, but this is now a curiosity for me also as I just picked up a Garmin Vivoactive 3. Upon doing an internet search I can't find anything specific, but would love to know if Garmin is actually looking at making this a valid option for us in Canada.
Garmin can offer this feature to your bank, but your bank has to approve it. That being said, it's odd that Canada doesn't have any banks listed. I suspect it would have to do with some kind of Canadian law. It would hurt Garmin more than benefit them if they were the deciding factor to exclude Canada. Your best bet would be to call Garmin directly and ask them.
I just asked my Canadian Bank if they support Garmin Pay. This is their response: "I can advise you that we support Google Pay and Apple Pay. We do not currently support Garmin Pay, and have no immediate plans to support this application. I have, however, forwarded your suggestion that we support it to the appropriate department for their review and consideration in future developments." I would love to use the feature but I won't hold my breath on it's implementation in the near future.
Having worked a bit on the tech, the main challenge is the certification process. It’s tricky to implement, first, and second, the certification process is long. Banks in Canada are big, old (full of old tech), and very structured/slow. For Garmin to lead this as a small guy in the payments industry... Don’t think it will happen short term. Apple pay took about 2/3 years and they’re real big and notorious.
Apple pay as well as Google pay are working fine in Canada. I wonder if it has to do with how much it is going to cost Garmin to get setup here. Acote5 - I am curious as to what your experience with Canada and Garmin was on this issue. Would have thought that Google and Apple would have pave the way.
I've been involved in the mobile payment space as well in the past, and as was stated above - it's the certification process that takes the most time. Just because Apple Pay and Google Wallet have done it, or been approved, have no bearing at all on Garmin. Note that Garmin Pay is actually a licensed version of a platform called 'FitPay', which is offered to many wearable device makers - so that Garmin doesn't have to do the heavy lifting themselves. But the bottom line for the entire process is that it has many layers and many steps in getting things approved. Take, for example, a VISA card from Chase - for that to work, you have to get approvals and certification from: - Chase, as the issuing bank - VISA, as the payment network - most if not all of the payment terminal vendors, like Verifone, Ingenico, etc. - the NFC chip vendor INSIDE the Garmin watch, although it's possible the FitPay platform already has that, on an overall basis, from the chip guys
And you have to get all that for every new software update, every new watch device, etc - I mean it is a BEAR of a process to navigate.
So for now I'm just glad that Chase VISA is here!!
