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MasterCard and Coin bring payments to your fitness band

Their partnership will let you pay with all kinds of wrist-worn devices.

Right now, you don't have many choices for paying for things from your wrist: there's the Apple Watch, the Microsoft Band (at Starbucks) and not much else. MasterCard and Coin don't think you should have to suffer from this lack of choice, though. They're teaming up to bring credit card payments to all kinds of wearable devices, including fitness trackers and a wider variety of smartwatches. Coin will supply the necessary hardware and software, while MasterCard will unsurprisingly handle the service side of things.

Just when you'll get to use it will depend on the hardware makers, but there are already a few relatively well-known names lined up: Atlas Wearables (above), Moov and Omate will make up the first wave. The big challenge may simply be getting you to embrace the idea. Services like Apple Pay work with considerably more cards, and there's no guarantee that stores will embrace the concept with open arms. Look at it this way, though -- when most of these devices wouldn't have payments at all, this is still a big step up.