4 ms·
My Garmin watch has Garmin Pay, which works even if I don't have my phone with me. I think I just presumed that there is a bank balance cached somewhere in the
by raffraffraff 1y ago
My Garmin watch has Garmin Pay, which works even if I don't have my phone with me. I think I just presumed that there is a bank balance cached somewhere in the app so that an attempt to spend up to a hard limit or that amount will work.
- lxgr 1y agoMobile/wearable wallets are usually online-only, since you can add one card to many devices, so offline limits would be really painful to synchronize (or alternatively banks would be taking a big risk by allowing more than one or two devices and duplicating limits).
- raffraffraff 1y agoIndeed. But still, there must be some sort of "credit score" behind these devices. It can't just give money to a vendor. It must be based on some prior amount agreed between Garmin Pay and the bank or card provider. Take a debit card for example. It's connected to a bank account, and cannot give credit. Garmin must be taking some of the risk on board, since the bank or card provider do not. There's also the fact that anecdotally people are reporting different spend limits. On a thread I saw one person claim that £30 was their limit and another saying "My largest payment so far on the watch has been £275"
- lxgr 1y agoOnline only means just that: There’s no pre-agreed amount; the merchant POS terminal has to ask the issuer for authorization of any transaction amount, however small. There can be other limits in place (like those controlling whether or not a PIN has to be entered), but those are on top of the requirement to obtain online approval from the issuing bank.