Garmin Pay – how to use any bank card or PayPal account

TL;DR – Link your bank account to the Curve App then link Curve to Garmin PAY (more…)

This “How To Guide” covers some unusually creative and super-convenient ways to pay for things during and after sports. Never again will you have an excuse to avoid your turn to buy a round of coffee and cake because Garmin PAY doesn’t support your bank. This guide also looks at adding payment mechanisms to sports tech on brands other than Garmin, including Polar, Coros, Apple and Suunto.

I’ll also explain how to use most UK High Street Banks with Garmin PAY, pay with a ring, pay with smart watchstraps that fit most watches, and add PayPal to your Apple Watch or Garmin PAY Wallet.

An extra goodie: Many of these methods can give you 1% cashback. So you’ll literally get paid to do this.

I’m writing from the UK so the situation might be different in your country but the basic principle should be very similar wherever you are.

There is no ‘trick’. These are established, indirect methods and clever bits of tech that I’ll show how to put to good use. I’ll be using physical payment devices from Tapster and Polar, and I’ll be using Financial Services products provided by Fidesmo and Curve. Regular readers of this site will know that I’ve worked with Polar for many years who sent me a free strap, Tapster gifted me a ring and the content is paid for by Curve. I’ve never previously used Fidesmo, Curve or Tapster and already use Apple Wallet, Garmin PAY, PayPal, AMEX, Mastercard, Mastercard Business, and Visa.

I’ll start with the ‘How To’ overviews for each scenario then detail my experience setting up Fidesmo and Curve. Then critique the pros & cons of using Tapster and a Polar Band for payments in my sports.

Tip #1: How to add Almost Any UK High Street Bank to Garmin PAY…yes, really!

You may own a Garmin Fenix 7 Pro, Forerunner 965 or are about to buy a new Garmin Edge 1050, wowed by their ability to tap and pay. Soon the reality dawns that Garmin’s direct support for UK banks is abysmal and only includes the following

• VISA: Santander, Wise, Revolut, Genome, FinecoBank, and Cornèrcard
• MASTERCARD: Starling Bank, Danske Bank, Curve, Prepaid Financial Services, and Wirecard Card Solutions Limited.

Of those only Santander is a Top 10 High Street Bank.

Your bank isn’t on that list, is it?

Many years ago, I got Garmin PAY to work for this blog by opening a Starling account…which is great but was yet another bank account to manage, top up and leave an often unused balance sitting there doing nothing for weeks.

I guess you are likely to be in a similar situation. Here is a super-simple solution to add your Bank to Garmin PAY.

1. Get a Curve debit card (link to Curve app)
2. Link the Curve app to your bank’s Mastercard Debit or Visa Debit
3. Add Curve to Garmin PAY

I bet your bank is one of these 7 supported High Street banks that work with Curve. If not, you’ll certainly be covered by number 8 and have one of those cards to link via Curve. #Sorted

1. HSBC Holdings PLC
2. Barclays PLC
3. Lloyds Banking Group
4. NatWest Group
5. Santander UK
6. Nationwide Building Society
7. Virgin Money UK PLC
8. Any visa/Mastercard/Diners or Discovery card – either debit or credit.

Limitations: You cannot link Curve to an AMEX card or these UK banks; Standard Chartered, Schroders, and Close Brothers Group.

Other points:

• You get a physical card sent in the post. You don’t need it. Once you’ve set up the app you can link your account details to Garmin PAY within minutes.

Tip #2: How to add tap-and-pay support to Coros, Suunto, and Polar Sports Watches

You always thought Polar, Suunto and Coros could never support contactless payments because the companies were too small to integrate payment technology and too small to negotiate deals with the major banks. You were right. But there is a way, here’s how.

Polar recently hooked up with Fidesmo to make a tap-and-pay watch strap. That strap IS the payment mechanism.

If you have any Coros, Polar, Suunto or other branded watches that support standard 20mm or 22mm watch straps then here’s what you need to do, again it’s Curve that provides the financial glue that makes it all work.

• Get a Polar Payment Wristband in either 22mm or 20mm, it’s about £50.00
• Get the free Fidesmo App
• Get the free Curve App and link it to Fidesmo (Fidesmo supports few other banks, Curve is your only real choice)
• Link Curve to your bank’s debit card or PayPal
• Link the Fidesmo app to your Polar Payment Wristband

Limitations: There are provider limitations like a lack of support for AMEX. However, the biggest drawback is the lack of biometric authentication – if someone has your strap, they can access your money. It’s like losing your physical wallet/purse. Immediately stop future transactions via the app if that happens.

Other Points

• The band still works if your phone or watch runs out of battery – a true emergency payment source
• With Garmin PAY or Apple Wallet, you have to enter a 4-digit code. The Polar Wristband omits that step and saves a few seconds.
• A simple way to tap and go on public transport – keep your phone in your bag or pocket.

Tip #3: How to add tap and pay support to old Garmin watches or Whoop

This is tricky.

Straps on older Garmin watches are standard width but have larger holes to accommodate a bespoke pin. You would have to use the Garmin pin and risk damaging the Polar Payment strap by using it.

Whoop has a bespoke band and I can’t see how to get it to work with any payment mechanism.

Tip #4: How to add PayPal to the Wallet on your Apple Watch (or Google PAY or Samsung PAY)

Many of us use PayPal for convenience. Despite the costs, it’s a great way to accept and use money from anywhere in the World in multiple currencies. It’s a payment service rather than a bank and you can’t directly add the PayPal service to Apple Wallet. Two workarounds let you do this.

#1 Get The Curve App

• Get the Curve App and link it directly to PayPal.com. You do not need the physical PayPal Mastercard.
• Link Curve to Apple Wallet
• Get 1% cashback on spending with Curve Metal/Curve Black

#2 Get a PayPal Debit MasterCard

• Well, just do that and link the PayPal Mastercard to your Apple Wallet.
• Get 0% (Zero) cashback. Hmmm. Zero, right?

Limitations: Your PayPal account is linked to at least one bank account as a payment source, possibly others too like AMEX. It’s not possible to use PayPal’s link to AMEX with the Curve app.

Other Points:

• When you add PayPal to Curve it’s done via a login to your PayPal account. No other account details are needed, you do not need a physical PayPal debit card.

Tip #5: How to pay with Curve during Runs, Rides or most workouts, leaving almost every piece of tech at home

Many people don’t work out with tech but do want potential emergencies covered.

Are you worried about breaking your tech? What if you forget your tech? What if you are worried that your tech is stolen from a gym locker? What if your bike computer doesn’t support contactless payments (almost all don’t)? What if you want an easy source of emergency money? Wow, life is full of worries and problems. Let’s talk solutions

If you’ve read the rest of the article, you can probably guess that Curve has a solution for you 😉

• Get a Tapster Ring for about £60, never needs charging
• Open a Fidesmo Account
• Get the Curve App and link it to Fidesmo
• Link your bank account, debit card or PayPal to Curve
• Link Curve to your Tapster ring
• Get 1% Cashback with Curve Metal/Curve BLACK

More points

• A ring is literally ‘handy’.
• You don’t have to contort your wrist to pay as you do with a smartwatch.
• A ring is arguably harder to lose than a watch
• If your ring is stolen it’s not obvious to the thief that it is a payment mechanism

Limitations

• A Tapster Ring can be used without biometric authentication. ie it’s as good as cash if you lose it. There ARE some mechanisms in place to mitigate this. You can immediately cancel the ring’s payment mechanism via the app

#6: A Mini Review of the Tapster Payment Ring

The Tapster smart ring feels super smooth and looks good as a plain band. It is much thinner and lighter than all other smart rings like Oura and Ultrahuman. Whilst it never needs charging its smarts come from an integrated tap-and-pay chip like the one on your phone. It does NOT store your card details, authorises sales with Fidesmo PAY and makes the payment with Curve’s link to your chosen bank card.

In Use

Once set up, you tap the ring on the payment machine. Most of the time that’s it. Occasionally I’ve had to change the place on the machine where I tap but I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the near 100% success rate with only one failure paying for a couple of beers in a pub (it worked for my next round an hour later).

Other Points

• Tapster has no battery. If your phone runs out of battery that’s it, whereas Tapster is a true emergency payment source.

#7: Curve – More Details, it’s an established and feature-full service

I see Curve as financial glue for all my devices and bank accounts. Here are some of the pros and cons which are certainly worth understanding.

Curve is a Mastercard debit card

• You use the card to buy something, it passes the transaction to your chosen linked card
• You can either use the physical Curve card or digitally with Garmin PAY, Apple PAY, Samsung PAY, or Google PAY
• You combine all your funding sources in the Curve app and can swap, choose and prioritise them

Other than the support for Garmin PAY, much of that is not unique. These extra goodies you get from using Curve:

1. Fee-free overseas payments on weekdays with one of the best foreign exchange rates from Mastercard ( £250 limit, 2.5% for additional spending, 1% for weekend spend)
2. Use your credit card at places it isn’t otherwise accepted
3. Automatic fall-back card if your main one isn’t accepted for some reason
4. Crypto cards can be added
5. Many retailer cashback schemes including IKEA (3%), P&O (3%) and Primark (4.8%)
6. 1% cashback with Curve Metal/Curve Black from Amazon, eBay, most supermarkets, adidas, Apple, ASOS, H&M, Starbucks, Boots, M&S, etc.
7. Change the card used for funding up to 4 months after the transaction. eg change the funding to a cashback source.

Cons

1. ATM withdrawals are charged at £2 or 2% per withdrawal, whichever is higher.
2. No Section 75 credit card protection. Curve is a debit card which is like using cash. You get limited Curve customer Protection up to £100,000.
3. You cannot use AMEX as a funding source
4. Curve’s FLEX feature is in effect a short-term loan. Cheaper options exist.

Some other thoughts

Curve has been around for years and recently turned its marketing attention toward sporty people, perhaps exemplified by its recent partnership with Chris Froome.

I was thinking for emergencies, I could permanently secrete a Tapster ring somewhere on my bike – say in the saddlebag or even the seat post. I could use Curve to link it to my Starling account which I think will decline transactions if there is an insufficient balance chance, limiting any liability. The ring weighs 2g, so even the weight weenies will be happy with having one for emergencies.

For cycling trips abroad, Curve would have been handy last year when I went to Madeira, it could eliminate the FX fees from my normal accounts. Curve says I could have saved up to 3% on every transaction. Whilst this year’s remaining cycling holiday is around the Hereford/Wales area, next year will hopefully be Tenerife. So Curve could be handy there linked to the Garmin Edge 1050 which makes NFC payments with Garmin PAY.

Adding AMEX and Curve to my Apple Watch Wallet for everyday use should cover all cashback opportunities. I get 1% cashback with AMEX, but at least one in five places I visit doesn’t accept it. Curve gives me a chance for more cashback as my main backup card. If you have any retailer rewards card (Visa/Mastercard), you can add them to Curve and retrospectively transfer spending to those cards to earn points. I haven’t looked into that yet.

Take Out

Curve offers a compellingly convenient way to use your bank accounts on a wide range of tech. It is the only way to link almost any UK High Street bank account to Garmin PAY.

Curve has many other optional features that are unusual and innovative. Fully understand them before using them. You may have to subscribe to access some of the optional features but you DO NOT have to do that to use Curve and your bank with Garmin PAY.

Definitely start with the free Curve Lite option which only charges for delivery.

Get the Curve App

Heads up: I am not giving financial advice, and this article is sponsored by Curve. The Tapster and Polar wearables were gifted. If you sign up for Curve via any links here, I get a small commission.

Q: Will I continue to use Curve?

A: Yes. I will use Curve in the future during sports. I’ll ditch my Starling account and instead use Curve on Garmin PAY. I will also use the Tapster Ring (plus Curve) as an emergency source of funds if my other tech fails. I’ll probably add it to my Apple ecosystem for the cashback opportunities.

Curve has approved this content.