“There is considerable anecdotal evidence that Apple is preparing to invade the mobile payments space. A quick perusal of the company’s recent patent filings leads me to conclude that Apple’s engineers are indeed converging on a large scale mobile payments solution to rival PayPal,” Kyle Spencer writes for Seeking Alpha. “For instance, there’s ‘Effecting payments using optical coupling’ that describes – an infrastructure of network-based clearinghouses for maintaining the anonymity of a plurality of customers and protecting their private and financial data. The kind of anonymity you might feel a need for when your prescription filled at your local pharmacy, for example.”
“Such a system would make little sense taken in isolation, especially given the burden of HIPAA compliance. But Apple appears to be shooting for the moon,” Spencer writes. “Nothing in either Apple’s patent arsenal or professional affiliations indicates that Apple intends to back anything but itself, or share a dime of the projected $1 trillion mobile payments space with anyone but Visa and MasterCard.”
“Apple’s stock is currently in a holding pattern until new products exit the pipeline in 2014, and I expect a relatively tight trading range of $500-$550 to reflect that fact going into the next two quarters,” Spencer writes. “The burning question of the hour is whether or not the iWallet will be one of those products. I expect that the answer will be yes.”
Read more in the full article here.
Related articles:
Bypassing the credit card: Apple patent application reveals major financial system beyond iWallet – January 30, 2014
PayPal wants to partner with Apple in mobile payments, sources say – January 30, 2014
iWallet: Apple exploring expansion of mobile payments, sources say – January 25, 2014
Apple patent application reveals secure iWallet system with iBeacon – January 16, 2014
Apple’s revolutionary iWallet is coming – December 10, 2013
Apple could have 250 million iBeacon-capable units in the wild by 2014 – December 7, 2013
Apple turns on iBeacon to guide shoppers at 254 U.S. retail stores – December 6, 2013
Analyst: Apple to reach 600 million users with credit card accounts on file by year end – June 4, 2013
I wish someone would explain how I would use this at my local pharmacy.
First mover advantage in this arena will be huge, so I hope Apple gets it done and out quickly!!!
Apple was not first with smartwatches, smartphones, or mp3 players. They just produced an obviously simple device that no one else could seem to figure out, until Apple did.
Considering Samsung is partnering with Paypal first mover is probably lost.. However Apple has a history of coming in with arguably ‘better’ (quoted due to term being subjective) implementations. I understand for CC security various CC companies have offered ‘one-time’ use CC numbers for online purchases.. As long as Apple can avoid overlapping patents held by other online payment systems already in use they may have a hit..
Go go go go Apple, how exciting!.
And this helps explain why Apple killed all the bitcoin wallet apps in the App Store.
Test, we should never cheer eliminating competition.
I want to be able to use bitcoin, PayPal, credit cards, and all other payment systems. Each has its place and consumers should have their choice of which to use in difference situations. It is really that simple.
Really hope Apple do this right, I would love ditch PayPal.
My guess is it will be similar case as iCloud vs Dropbox though
You are correct about keychain. I can’t believe Apple does it the way they do. Not secure.
Nice try BLN.
Given the epic fails in security running through the whole computer and banking records system, Apple had better deliver a dead nuts reliable system from day one.
That spells opportunity if Apple does it right. I know they have the incentive and the right high end customers.
Ok .. How much was your pay for bash?
Lol… You trolls are doing more damage to the competition than your intended target !