Visa Inc., the global leader in payments, today announced it is supporting consumer payments with the new iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch. Thanks to a new capability called Visa Token Service, participating financial institutions in the U.S., and eventually abroad, will be able to add Visa debit and credit cards to Apple Pay, Apple’s new payment service, and enable their customers to make easy and secure purchases at select U.S. merchants both in stores and in apps.
Visa Token Service technology works by replacing sensitive payment account information found on plastic cards with a digital account number or “token” that can be safely stored on mobile devices and used for in store and in app purchases. Visa will roll out the service to financial institutions in phases — initially supporting early participants in the Apple Pay launch, and then extending the service availability to all of its U.S. clients.
“Combining the trust, scale and security of Visa payments with Apple Pay will accelerate adoption of mobile payments,” said Charlie Scharf, Chief Executive Officer, Visa Inc., in a statement “We said from the beginning that token services would provide great new consumer and merchant experiences, and you’re seeing it today in our efforts with Apple, and there’s more to come.”
By enabling Visa account holders to also make purchases in store and in app with their new iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, and Apple Watch, consumers will now have a seamless experience with their preferred form of payment.
“The combination of new digital experiences from Apple with new network capabilities from Visa provides for great payment experiences and enhanced security for millions of Visa account holders, merchants and financial institutions,” said Scharf.
CyberSource and Authorize.Net, two Visa-owned payment platforms, have also integrated with Apple Pay, providing online merchants with payment management solutions and supporting them to securely accept in app payments from the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch.
For more information visit: www.visa.com/digitalsolutions.
Source: Visa Inc.
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Here is how you know this is big, Apple has most of the big banks already on board with this and the three main cards (and I’m sure Discover will be announced shortly). The only way this could happen is they all see this as a better and safer way than is currently being used for transactions. The banks don’t care how you use the card as long as you use it. So they wouldn’t care about this unless it was good for them and cutting don on fraud is good for them.
These huge breeches at Target and Home Depot are very expensive to fix but if transactions use a one-time token as Apple Pay does, there is no account info to be lost. It will be impossible to card surf. Even POS and cash machines can be made more secure by eliminating not only cards surfing but skimmers. Of course people will still need to be diligent but they need to be now with cards.
As far as I know, this is the new gold standard for mobile payments. If there’s a weak spot, its the thumbprint.
I think if a customer whips out a severed thumb at the POS scanner to activate his phone, people are going to be a mite suspicious. 😀
——RM
Can you do prepaid? If yes the world will turn around!!! Emoji apple watch thumbs up
Of course you can prepay as long as the prepay card support ApplePay. ApplePay takes care of secure transaction and a small margin from the financial companies.
I can only assume the prepay cards by say Visa and Amex will be supported quickly if not straight out of the door.
We have iPhones in our family, but I don’t have one – yet – THIS will make me get an iPhone! If my credit union Visa cards work with Apple Pay.
Apple Pay sounds fantastic. How does it help with security for online purchases, or purchases made over the phone? That seems to still be a huge gap in security.