Garmin watches sold in South Korea can finally pay for things. On November 11, T-money and Garmin officially launched Garmin Pay in the country, and for the first time a Garmin watch bought there ships with a working payment service.
It is not a bank card setup. It is a T-money card, the prepaid transit card most Koreans already carry, now living inside Garmin Wallet. Tap the watch on a bus reader or subway gate, and you ride. Tap it at a convenience store or a cafe that takes T-money, and you pay.
That combination is the whole point. Garmin has supported Garmin Pay since 2017 across more than 100 countries, but Korea was not one of them, because the country's card payments run through local networks rather than the international card rails Garmin Pay was built on. T-money was the way in.
Four watches work on day one
Garmin is starting with a short list:
- Forerunner 170
- Forerunner 570
- Forerunner 970
- Venu 4
All four need their own software updated plus a current version of the Garmin Connect app before the option appears. Garmin says more devices will be added, without naming which ones or when.
The Forerunner 170 is the interesting inclusion. It is the budget end of the running line, and it is on the list ahead of the Fenix 8. Newer hardware first is the obvious read here, since Garmin Pay needs the watch to handle the secure element side of the transaction, though Garmin has not said why the older flagships are missing.
If you want one of the supported models, the Forerunner 970 and the Venu 4 are the two premium options on the list. Both launched earlier this year, and we went through the Forerunner 970 and 570 specs when they were announced.
Setting it up takes about two minutes
The flow runs through Garmin Connect:
- Open the Garmin Connect app and select your paired watch.
- Go to Wallet & Garmin Pay.
- Tap Add Card, set a PIN, then choose Transport and T-money Card.
- Top up the balance.
No separate T-money app is needed. That is a change from the usual Korean setup, where a mobile T-money card means installing the T-money app and juggling accounts.
The card is prepaid, so it needs money on it before it works. You can load it with a credit card registered inside Garmin Connect, or at a convenience store, a subway station, or a partner ATM the old way.
Rapid Pass is the feature that matters day to day
Garmin included Rapid Pass, which lets you pay without opening the wallet or typing a PIN, as long as the watch is powered on. You just tap.
For a subway gate at 7:40 in the morning with a bag in one hand, that is the difference between the feature being useful and being a demo. It is also the same trade-off every tap-to-pay system makes: convenience now, a stolen unlocked watch is a spending risk later. Garmin's answer is that you can turn it off and keep the PIN.
Why this is a bigger deal than one country
Garmin's payment story has always been narrower than Apple's or Samsung's. Garmin Pay works with supported Visa, Mastercard, Maestro and Discover issuers, which is why the company can say "more than 100 countries" while whole markets still have no usable card. Korea is the clearest example, and Garmin's own transit documentation has never listed a Korean system until now.
Adding T-money does two things. It gives Korean runners and cyclists a reason to leave the phone at home on a ride, which is the use case Garmin Korea's own head of country leaned on in the announcement. And it shows the template: where card rails are not the answer, partner with the transit operator instead. That is the only realistic path into a market like this one.
It also sits next to a broader pattern this fall, where Garmin has been shipping features that connect the watch to the world around it rather than adding another training metric.
Nelson Chen, who runs Garmin Korea, framed the launch around exactly that: making the watch useful outside of workouts, so the run, the ride home and the drink afterward all happen on one device.
There is also a practical bonus for anyone near Goyang. Garmin is running a Garmin Pay demo booth at Garmin Run Korea on November 15, where you can tap a loaner watch at a reader before committing.
What it does not do
A few limits worth knowing before you get excited:
- No Korean bank cards. This is T-money only. You cannot add a Korean credit or debit card to Garmin Pay, so the wallet is a transit card with extra reach, not a full replacement for Samsung Pay.
- Prepaid only. No postpaid billing, no automatic top-up described in the launch material.
- Four watches. If you own a Fenix, an Epix, a Venu 3 or an older Forerunner, you are waiting.
- Korea only. Nothing about this changes Garmin Pay anywhere else.
Bottom line
This is a regional launch, and for most readers outside Korea it changes nothing. But it is the first time Garmin has cracked a market where the card networks were the blocker, and it did it with a transit card rather than a bank. If that template travels, the next version of this story will be about a country you actually live in.
If you are in Korea and own one of the four supported watches, update both the watch firmware and Garmin Connect, then look under Wallet & Garmin Pay. The card is there. You just have to feed it.
Sources: T-money and Garmin launch announcement, Newspim, Financial News, MoneyToday, Digital Today, Garmin Rumors.
