Mobile payments have come a long way since their inception. The big guns in the war are Apple Pay and Google Wallet.
The US is usually first in the battle, but close behind is the UK. Many
people, including myself, are looking forward to Apple Pay’s arriving
in the UK. From the latest reports, it looks like we are not going to
have to wait too long either. Apple is in negotiations with the
major banks in Britain, with a view to launching the touch-to-pay
service within the first half of 2015, according to The Telegraph.
A report claims that one of the banks is
uncomfortable with the sheer amount of their customer data that Apple
wants to collect. The alarm is that Apple may use this information to
launch “an invasion of the banking industry”. It is also theorised that
none of these major banks is wanting to miss out on bringing on board
the Apple Pay system.
Currently Apple Pay allows iPhone 6 and 6
Plus users to upload their credit and debit card details to a ‘secure
element’ within the iPhone. The system will then allow for the user to
pay for purchases by tapping the phone onto a merchants’ terminal.
Apple’s Touch ID fingerprint scanner will then be used to authenticate
the purchase.
Currently the service is proving to be a
success in the US. It is, in fact, accounting for one percent of all
digital payments in the first full month of operation and it is
accounting for half of touch-to-pay transactions in the fast food chain,
McDonalds in the month of November.
[Image via ibtimes]
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