Apple may soon deliver the watershed moment for mobile payments

“Mobile payments, or the notion that you can pay for goods and services at the checkout with your smartphone, may finally break into the mainstream if Apple and the iPhone 6 get involved,” Roger Cheng reports for CNET.

“While Apple doesn’t talk about future products, Wired was the latest to report that the next iPhone would include mobile-payment capabilities powered by a short-distance wireless technology called near-field communication, or NFC,” Cheng reports. “Apple’s embrace of mobile payments would represent a watershed moment for how people pay at drugstores, supermarkets, or for cabs. The technology and capability to pay with a tap of your mobile device has been around for years… but awareness and usage remain low. Apple’s visibility and massive user base – it already holds credit card data for about 800 million iTunes account holders — could change that.”

“‘Apple has again the opportunity to transform, disrupt and reshape an entire business sector,’ said Roger Entner, a consultant at Recon Analytics. ‘It is hard to overestimate what impact Apple could have if it really wants to play in the payments market,'” Cheng reports. “‘Apple’s already made great inroads with Passbook,’ said Maribel Lopez, an analyst at Lopez Research. ‘It could totally crack open the mobile payments space in the US.'”

Read more in the full article here.

Related articles:
Apple working with NXP to bring pay-by-touch NFC technology in new iPhone – August 29, 2014
Apple’s ‘iPhone 6′ will include NFC mobile payments, sources say – August 28, 2014
More evidence of NFC support for both iPhone 6 models – August 27, 2014
Schematic suggests NFC chip in ‘iPhone 6,’ amount of RAM remains unknown – August 18, 2014
Apple’s iPhone 6 line will sport new A8 chip, faster Wi-Fi, improved Touch ID, and NFC – August 6, 2014
NFC, wireless charging, improved LTE rumored for Apple’s ‘iPhone 6′ – June 9, 2014
Apple patent reveals new iPhone antenna that adds NFC – May 22, 2014

10 Comments

    1. You are only on the hook for $50 on a credit card or $500 on a debit card in most jurisdictions. There are other ways to protect your cash stash.

      American Express Serve is a low cost way to minimize exposure if you do not want to do business with PayPal. You can walk in a Walgreens, Wal Mart or any number of other places and put cash on the card without getting eaten up on fees.

      Has a fairly nice iOS app.
      https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/serve/id425685843?mt=8

  1. WOW! Yet another article which tells us nothing we didn’t know! More vacuous speculation without any specifics!! I can’t wait for the next 2000 of these over the next 10 days!!!!

  2. And if you had been paying attention to Apple’s patents you would have seen this coming a long time ago. Not all of their patents turn into actual products but when there’s a slew of patents in a given area it’s a good bet that they’re interested in bring something along these lines to market.

Reader Feedback

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.