Wristband linked to account

Loving my monzo card. I’ve used it to pretty much cut cash out of my life. Was just wondering if there was any logic to having a wristband linked to an account for having money available at the beach or on a night out without worrying you will lose it. Just a thought.

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You mean like an Apple/Android/Fitbit wrist type device that are on the market?

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It’s not Monzo, and imo expensive, but: bPay by Barclaycard

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I mean just a wristband with a monzo chip built in. So all control remains In the app. Inexpensive and convenient.

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Yeah like the Bpay band I guess. Would that work with monzo ?

Just order bPay… bin Barclays card… cut your Monzo card - done :)))

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If you successfully do this, getting the antenna connected, etc, without damage and re-seal and waterproof the final result, please show us video of it in action :smiley:

It definitely should be possible, and not even that hard technically, but I’d probably damage antennas trying :frowning:

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I’m surprised the card manufacturers aren’t putting some effort into different forms for the contactless tech. After all, it is eminently marketable to their customers (the banks).

They definitely are. You can get all kinda of wearable form factors and the like. Not used so much by banks, but definitely available.

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There is just a card inside - standard SIM size I guess

That just made it a lot harder. Instead of having to connect the chip to an antenna through the wristband with some reasonably attachable interface, you now need to attach it to the antenna in a much smaller card. Good luck!

I believe the bPay tiny cards with integrated antennas are made by Gemalto - they have a page about their various wearable form factors, so I guess Monzo could rock up and ask for some themselves, if they wanted to offer them to account holders (after they added the ability to link multiple cards to the same account).
For the moment, best off getting a bPay device and linking it to your (full-size) Monzo card.
I wonder how bPay make money though, excepting the initial sale of the device? They’re effectively operating a small topup card, which as we know from recent threads here, will cost them a percentage of all topups, unless by being an arm of Barclays they can skip that pesky fee?

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The profit margin in the initial sale is pretty high and once the novelty wears off I imagine most people rarely use them.

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They expire, like bank cards - https://www.bpay.co.uk/terms-and-conditions (point 11)

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That too, and they don’t give you a super-long expiration date either… sigh

Mini SIM form-factor but looks like a non-standard pinout so I don’t think you’d have any luck getting anything but the Barclays card to work with that wristband. Would be nice to have a standard pinout (like we have for SIM cards for example) for contactless antennas as well, allowing different banks to make such cards for wearables.

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It’s an induction loop, simple enough I’m sure someone with way too much time to fiddle with tiny, easy to break traces can hook up each end correctly :slight_smile:

Yes, of course any tech person worth their salt should be able to do it, but I’m talking about making it so that you don’t have to be a tech person to do so. It should be as easy as popping in a new SIM card. :slight_smile:

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Oooohhhh… I like :smiley:

Tho to clarify, there’s no antenna in the wristband at all looking at that - it’s all in the card. It’s just a mini contactless card shoved into a writstband. Could make the whole thing smaller and work better with your idea tho. Nano-SIM size (4FF) card with no antenna, slots into any compatible wristband and just has two antenna contacts :smiley:

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