Alfa-Bank announced a new AlfaPay watch for its clients, which allows them to pay from their account by simply touching the dial to the terminal. Let's talk about them in more detail.
To be honest, the news of the appearance of this watch would have passed me by, if not for Sergei Potresov, who drew attention to them on Twitter. Thanks to Seryozha, we, in turn, will try to figure out what this watch can do and who may need it.
To pay for your purchases, a mini-card with a special chip is inserted into the watch, it is tied to one of your current accounts with Alfa-Bank, and debits will take place from it. The mini-card works using MasterCard PayPass technology.
If you do not have an Alfa-Bank card yet, then you can get a watch only when you register one of their service packages. The cheapest 'Optimum' will cost 179 rubles a month, 1,929 rubles a year, or it will be free for you, provided that the amount of 70,000 rubles / 1,500 dollars / 1,100 euros is kept in your accounts. Alfa-Bank's current customers who are already using the Optimum package or its more expensive analogues can simply order watches at any Alfa-Bank office or by calling their hotline numbers. The cost of the watch is 5,000 rubles.
On the one hand, this is too high a cost for a slightly more convenient payment method, on the other hand, most 'smartwatches' have a price tag of 7,000 rubles and more. It seems to me that design will play an important role in the success of this watch. How much users will like it, or, on the contrary, will cause rejection in them. Consider this gadget only as an accessory with additional functionality. In my opinion, buying them just for the sake of contactless purchases is not worth it, in the end, the convenience will not be so great as to overpay 5,000 rubles for it. By the way, I asked our readers on Twitter about the design of this watch, the reviews were different, someone treated it neutrally, someone liked it, the rest were negative.
Looking into the future, I see the option with mass support for this mini-card with a chip as a more interesting option with ordinary watches and other banks. That is, so that you can choose any watch, insert your bank's mini-card there and start paying. The current tight binding to one model significantly limits the potential audience.
What do you say, dear readers? Are you interested in such a watch? Should I take them for a review?