FitPay and NXT-ID: Securing Contactless Payments One Device At A Time

Gone are the days where most people kept a few dollars in their wallets. Today’s consumers are turning to card and contactless payments. FitPay is working to enable and secure contactless payments made on any connected device. Earlier this year, FitPay joined forces with security technology company NXT-ID in an effort to build out a more comprehensive Internet of Things (IoT) platform. Currently FitPay is providing connectivity to Visa, Mastercard and Discover’s tokenization systems.

Apple Pay and Samsung Pay have their own proprietary methods of enabling contactless payments, but FitPay is engulfing the rest of the smart device industry. Michael Orlando, president of FitPay and COO of NXT-ID, shared with PYMNTS the company’s place in the contactless payment sector and plans for introducing new joint-effort products to enhance the payments industry.

“We’re focused on the rest of that marketplace that’s not operating on everything outside of Apple Pay and Samsung Pay,” Orlando said. “There are many different devices across telephone manufacturers that are looking to avail themselves with not only payment capabilities but other types of secure credential management.”

Security throughout the IoT arena is a topic that’s continually being refined. With multiple devices connected and communicating at such a rapid speed, providing security to all can be a difficult task to master. Orlando says the blending of biometric and behavioral metric authentication is the key to working toward more enhanced IoT security for most use cases.

Throughout the remainder of the year, FitPay and NXT-ID will be working in sync to join forces for new tech offerings. “The focal point of what we’re trying to do is to combine our technologies to help accelerate the value of IoT devices beyond what it’s being used for today.”

The projected new offerings could be unveiled as early as Q1 in 2018.