“Ever since Apple introduced the Passbook – a neat app that allows consumers to store loyalty cards, tickets, gift cards and passes on their iPhones – talk has heated up about exactly when the tech giant will enter the field of mobile payments,” Amanda Alix writes for The Motley Fool.
“This year is no different, and the conjecture has begun as to whether Apple will include Near Field Communication technology, which would allow iPhone users to make mobile payments to merchants who use NFC, in the iPhone 6,” Alix writes. “Apple, as usual, is silent on the issue.”
“The company’s 600 million iTunes account users has long been seen as a starting point for any movement toward a mobile payments platform,” Alix writes. “If NFC isn’t part of the picture, a viable alternative would be for Apple to position itself as a direct competitor to eBay’s PayPal. The talks with industry executives to which The WSJ referred might be a plan to partner with retailers and other vendors, much as PayPal has done with big-box stores and other retailers. In addition to these discussions, Apple has tapped one of its own executives to create a payments division within the company.”
Read more in the full article here.
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