If you’ve been waiting for Dangerous Things to come up with a solution to the payment implant problem, your wait may finally be over.
The Problem; Fear
Making an EMV payment with an implanted device has been a technical possibility for a very long time. The problem has been payment schemes, also called payment networks, i.e. Mastercard, Visa, Europay, American Express, Discover, etc. who control which “payment instruments” (cards, fobs, anything you swipe, insert, or tap at the payment terminal) are granted certification and legitimately allowed to participate in the payment scheme (yes they call themselves schemes, a very apt name).
This has nothing to do with banks (called issuers in card payment parlance). In fact, several issuers (banks) came to us over the years to help them launch a payment implant product, only to be shut down by their partner payment network. Sparda Bank was one such issuer, and they even offered customers implants! The heart of the problem is that payment networks simply don’t want to risk their stock price dropping even half a percent due to any controversy over payment services being linked to implants. Yet, while blocking payment implants from getting certification, they launch straight up mark-of-the-beast programs that allow you to pay with your right hand or forehead (pdf). You can’t make this shit up.
The simple solution; Conversion
The solution we have provided thus far is conversion of existing payment instruments, i.e. taking a working keyfob or certain types of CoM cards, extracting the chip from them, attaching the chip to a new antenna, and encapsulating it to make it biosafe for implantation. We call this our Conversion Service. It works, however there are problems with this approach;
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Once the payment instrument expires, you have to remove and replace it.
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You can only perform payments with it, it can’t do anything else really.
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If the payment instrument is a CoM card, you may be asked to insert the card from time to time, which you cannot do.
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Sometimes banks issue special novelty tap-to-pay keychains or fobs, then suddenly cancel services to those devices with hardly any warning.
The better solution; Tokenization
Tokenization works by taking a supported credit card number (PAN / account) and converting it to a payment token. This is exactly how Apple Pay and Google Pay (and all the other * Pay services) work. If the card you set up in your Google Wallet expires, you simply remove it and add another and your phone keeps working for tap-to-pay. There are other passive chip based devices that also work this way, deploying a payment token (DPAN or “device PAN”) to the chip. In this way, should the tokenized account expire, you simply change the DPAN on the chip to a new card account and keep on tappin. There are only a few companies that enable tokenization of payment card PANs to smartcard chips as DPANs. One such company is Fidesmo.
A while back, VivoKey Technologies launched a payment capable Apex chip based product called Apex Ring, which works with Fidesmo for application management and payment services via Fidesmo Pay. The real advantage of the Apex Ring product over other payment instruments include;
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The ability to tokenize supported payment cards to the Apex Ring from issuers who have partnered with Fidesmo to enable Fidesmo Pay services.
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Payment tokens (DPANs) on Apex Ring should never ask the customer to insert the original payment card, just as Apple Pay or Google Pay transactions don’t.
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VivoKey has published multiple high-value applets for Apex Ring that can work right alongside Fidesmo Pay, including FIDO2 / Passkey applet, a Tesla keycard applet, an OTP Authenticator applet, and more!
Even though the Apex Ring is no longer offered for sale to the public through VivoKey, Dangerous Things happened to acquire the “right to purchase” from a large tranche of Apex Ring inventory. Rather than sell the rings outright, we are offering conversion services to customers. This is how it works;
- You obtain an account from a supported card issuer
- Customer (that’s you) purchases the conversion service
2a) DT (that’s us) acquires an Apex Ring on your behalf
2b) DT receives and converts the ring into an implant - Tokenize your payment card to Apex Ring conversion
- You pay for things with your Apex Ring conversion
How you too can achieve happiness
Watch the video, but definitely read what’s under it too.
Step 1 - Open an account with a supported issuer
I’m in the EU!
Fidesmo is a Swedish company so of course they started partnering with issuers in the EU first. There is a long list of supported issuers on their website if you scroll down a bit, but the always-up-to-date list is a JSON dataset pulled from their API; https://api.fidesmo.com/pay/v2/supported_banks.json
Just pick an issuer in your country, get an account, then get a payment card attached to that account. Once you have the card, move on to Step 2.
I’m in the USA
Historically we’ve had a very hard time getting issuers in the USA to support Fidesmo Pay. Currently, at the time of this writing, there are no listings for the USA. However, because of the interwoven and interconnected nature of the payment industry, there are financial institutions operating in the US that partner with card issuers that do actually support Fidemso Pay, but only in certain states (at the time of this writing).
If you are in the USA, you can open an account with Ether.fi in order to obtain a card PAN that can be tokenized to your Apex Ring conversion using Fidesmo Pay.
Admittedly it’s an indirectly supported method for achieving this, but the end result is you get to tap and pay with an Apex Ring conversion implant. Don’t get confused with Ether.fi offering cryptocurrency integration, all you want to do is verify your identity so you can set up a USD cash account, then transfer in some funds. Once you do that, you can then request a virtual card (don’t bother with a physical card). Once you have the virtual card number, you can proceed to Step 2.
The down side to Ether.fi is that there are certain states (at the time of this writing) that they are not able to operate in due to specific compliance problems. You can see that list here; Where is ether.fi currently unavailable? | ether.fi Help Center
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Ether.fi offers cryptocurrency integration but it isn’t necessary. Open your account by just verifying your email address.
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Once your account is open, verify your account (identity). You’ll have to supply some form of ID and do a face verification with your camera. It’s very quick.
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After your account is verified, you will need to add funds to the account. I sent $7 at first just to get things moving. It doesn’t have to be much. Once you do, you will then be able to request a virtual payment card.
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With funds in the USD cash account, you can request a virtual payment card. It takes only seconds. You will receive a virtual credit card number, expiration date, and CVV code which you will need to write down, then proceed to Step 2.
The rest of the world
Well.. according to Ether.fi they are currently not operating in the following countries (as of this writing);
Belarus, Bangladesh, China, Cuba, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, India, Iraq, Israel, Nepal, Netherlands, North Korea, Philippines, Russia, Syria, Turkey, Ukraine, Venezuela, Vietnam
What I’m unsure of at this point is if you can 1) get an Ether.fi account in every other country, and 2) get a payment card issued to you that is compatible with Fidesmo Pay. I would be extremely interested to find out if anyone in a country that is 1) not listed on Fidesmo Pay’s list of supported countries, and 2) not listed on Ether.fi list of unsupported countries can get an Ether.fi account and get a payment card issued to them. If you are interested in testing this out, please visit this link so we can test and track results;
Step 2 - Purchase the Apex Ring conversion service
This part is pretty easy. The hardest part will be choosing between getting the Narrow, Module, or Spectrum form factor.
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The narrow option, also called the Flex, is a long narrow shape which is designed to be able to be inserted into the incision made by our custom 4G needle. The needle is used to make an incision and inserted under the skin up to the laser etched mark. This creates a pocket of separated fascia tissue, which allows a professional to pick up the Flex with sterile gloves on and insert it into the incision. Installation is the easiest with the narrow Flex out of all of the options, but performance is finicky and some payment terminals may not be able to read it at all.
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The Module is by far the best performing implant we have (probably). Performance is not just the range (distance between implant and reader) but also how accurate you have to be with your positioning and / or rotational orientation to get a read. The Module can be read by payment terminals through thick clothing, gloves, etc. without much issue at all, even if you aren’t perfectly over the payment terminal antenna. Installation requires scalpel work, dermal elevators, and sutures to close the incision after. It’s not an easy install, but that’s the price to pay for performance.
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The Spectrum is less performant than the Module, but much better than the narrow Flex. It’s primary advantage is the RGB auto-fade LED included on the PCB. The narrow Flex and Module are both encapsulated in our biopolymer while the Spectrum is encapsulated in our bioresin. This makes it thicker than the Flex or Module, but also much more rigid and robust. You can see what the Spectrum looks like when used for payment here.
Step 3 - Tokenize the card to your Apex conversion
3a) Install Fidesmo mobile app
To tokenize your payment card to your Apex Ring conversion, you’ll need to install the Fidesmo mobile app on your phone (Android / iPhone)
3b) Scan your Apex with Fidesmo app
Follow the instructions in the Fidesmo app to connect your “wearable” to the app by scanning it. You should see the VivoKey Apex Ring product name at the top, then at the bottom a “Connect a service” button. Tap “Connect a service”, then find Fidesmo Pay and tap “Connect” to start the process.
3c) Fidesmo Pay tokenization
The tokenization process starts by asking for your email address. BE SURE YOU ENTER THIS CORRECTLY and also WRITE IT DOWN IF YOU HAVE TO because this will act as a key of sorts to allow you to manage your payment tokenization in the future. If you ever need to remove / replace / update your token (and you will), then you will need to enter THE SAME EXACT EMAIL ADDRESS you entered during setup, or you won’t be able to update your payment token.
ANDROID REQUIRED - the second most important aspect of this process is that it requires an Android phone. Unfortunately Apple blocks access to standard payment application IDs required to write the payment token to the chip over NFC, so Android is required for this step.
After entering your email, follow the rest of the instructions. Enter the payment card information and follow through whatever activation process or steps your issuer requires. Sometimes it’s a simple “Agree” button and sometimes it’s a code sent via SMS to your phone. Once activated, you will be asked to tap and hold your phone to your Apex Ring conversion to complete the tokenization process.
The actual process of writing the payment token to the Apex Ring conversion chip takes a long time.. many many seconds. Keep holding your phone still over the Apex until it completes.
Step 4 - Go make a test payment
Now you just need to go make a test payment at a terminal. Make it small, like a few dollars / euros only. Depending on the form factor you chose, you may need to get used to exactly how to position and orient the Apex Ring conversion to the terminal, and every terminal is different of course. This will take some time to get used to, but it’s time well spent.
Potential Risk
Aside from the normal risks involved with implantable devices, there is an additional risk to consider. Since we are performing wholesale conversions of certified payment instruments, it is a possibility that a payment network may become irritated enough to force a pipeline shutdown. The end result would be that your Apex Ring conversion would stop working for payment. You should still be able to deploy and manage other applications on the chip, but payment would simply stop working. This is another reason why we’ve taken this long to make this publicly offer Apex Ring payment instrument conversion.
