I might be paranoid, but I like that my bankcards are in a metal case (I got it because it's water/dustproof, but I like the bonus) and I like that Wallet only activates the rfid for a second, then I'm no longer broadcasting.
And adding to this: using the card gives me peace of mind because it never runs out of battery. If I only used my phone for payments and it died while I was out, I would be screwed. Can't call a friend, can't pay for transit, I guess I'm walking for hours to get home? Since I use the card to pay, if my phone dies, the worst thing that happens to me is I might need to look at a physical map to figure out which train to take home.
Since 2018 you can still use tap when your iPhone battery has died. It works for transit passes, keys, and some payment methods. They call it Express Cards and it will continue to work for ~4 hours after your phone has died. iPhone's keep a "Power Reserve" for NFC when dead.
If you have a lot of resources to protect against or known risk, you segment.
For example, do most daily transactions at one bank, and keep the rest at another.
This happens a lot in companies and government - you outsource payable operations to different division of government or a contractor. Hire one to do custody of money, another to process disbursements.
In fact, a smartwatch might be the ideal "second personal portable computer that's just for auth and banking" that is being proposed by various commentors here.
Requiring that everyone carry a smartwatch (or other smartwatch-based compute nugget) around to participate in civic life is a bit less onerous than requiring everyone carry around a smartphone; smartwatches are both cheaper and smaller.
And, to me at least, smartwatches are much more of an appliance than a smartphone is. Nobody's really begging to sideload apps onto their smartwatch, or to install an alternate launcher onto them, etc. Smartwatches just kind of "do what they should obviously do given the hardware design and HCI affordances" — kind of like a calculator.
As a bonus, unlike smartphones, most smartwatches to this day still aren't independently connected to cellular networks; so the average wiretapped smartwatch can't be used to surveil your location and activities in quite the same way that a wiretapped smartphone can.
Yeah, in low-fraud scenarios it's a very good idea. Otherwise, though, you have the problem of what happens when a robber takes it.
I'm thinking a ring type device might be better--put a pulse oximeter into it, you unlock it with your phone, it remains unlocked only so long as it gets basically perfect data from the oximeter, locks if it fails for a second. Thus said robber can neither snatch your ring nor cut off your finger and use it. I like the metal mesh straps that can hold my device very snugly against my skin without being tight and that would be good enough, but a looser strap would not.
The smartwatches I've owned with payments support (Pixel Watch series) automatically lock when they are not worn, presumably using the heart-rate sensor.
I wonder if this makes room in the market for some simpler device for payments. Something like a wearable that you can tap-to-pay and has the signed software attenuation but nothing else so you can't be tracked using GPS.
Heh yeah, my comment does kinda scream credit card. What I really mean is something programmable for narrow use-cases like multiple forms of payments, transit, or other stuff like building access.
Long ago we used to have ‘mini’ credit cards. You could get a two-thirds size magstripe card from some major banks that’d go right on your keychain. Discover had a cute little bean keychain with a flip-out magstripe card (the Discover2Go) as well.
At the same time there was also the Exxon-Mobil Speedpass RFID fob, and I remember there being a huge discussion about “the battle of the keychain” and whose payment instrument would win being on your keys to be used the most alongside your loyalty cards.
This will be the answer as we move away from screens as phones. Smart watches have slowly edged in, but I foresee some 'no screen' being the answer to payments, access control, etc
that exists. It's called Felica, and it's used all over Japan. train passes, vending machine, convenience stores, many restaurants. Built into iphone and a few androids.
Note that the payments are tied to a card/chip but you can (at the moment) buy new card no id/registration required
Nice. We had this in the 90s in Holland. It was called chipknip. (Knip is old slang for wallet).
It was really like digital cash, the money was loaded onto a chip. So if you lost it you lost all the money. There was no pin code either, just like a real wallet. Unfortunately it was not really anonymous because the Dutch government are really into surveillance.
It didn't really last very long, it was only popular for parking machines. In those days 2G was expensive so validating transactions online was rare.
