Dive Brief:
- Block subsidiary Cash App has partnered with luxury apparel and footwear brand Nahmias to create a bandana that enables digital payments, the Oakland, California-based peer-to-peer payments provider said in a Monday press release.
- The bandana has the payment company’s tap-to-pay tag, which lets customers pay without using their phones or wallets. The cotton and silk bandana features Cash App’s patch woven in a corner, indicating where users can tap to make contactless payments, the release said.
- The two companies will begin selling the accessory exclusively through Cash App for $85 starting Nov. 17, per the release.
Dive Insight:
With its Nahmias partnership, Block, Cash App’s parent company, is continuing to experiment with unusual payment tools. In June, the company introduced its digital wand, which enables payments using its digital payment tags attached to wand-like keychains with stars at the end, the company said in an earlier release.
“Working with Cash App gave us the opportunity to reimagine an everyday accessory as a new way to pay, while putting our own Nahmias language on the design,” founder and creative director of the namesake brand, Doni Nahmias, said in the release. “We wanted to create something that feels effortless to wear and style, but also has a practical purpose.”
As Cash App expands its payment capabilities to uncommon objects, digital wallets are extending their offerings beyond cardless payments. And it’s not the only payments player to tap inanimate objects as payment tools: tech company Apple offers Apple Pay options for its proprietary watches.
Payment players like Google and Apple are allowing for personal documents to be tucked into digital wallets, letting users carry virtual driver’s licenses, passports, airline boarding passes and concert tickets.
Along with integrating more personal documents into digital wallets, payment companies are increasingly relying on biometrics to execute transactions. Earlier this year, Clover, the Fiserv subsidiary, began providing its biometric verification services to Fiserv merchants, enabling consumers to pay with their face and palms.
