Blog: Apple Is ‘Serious’ about Moving into Payments
Apple isn’t aiming for the low-hanging fruit.
By Vaughn Highfield, Total Payments
Apple entering the payments space has been a tantalizing prospect for many for a while now. It’s certainly something that would easily upset the status quo of the payments market. And, while we’ve not heard anything concrete on the matter of payments, except for an occasional teasing statement from Tim Cook, it looks as if Apple really is moving into the world of payments.
The latest piece of speculation comes from Re/Code, which claims that Apple now is hiring for two new senior electronic payment positions.
Its sources claim that Apple’s eCommerce head Jennifer Bailey has met with candidates for the roles and is leading the process.
| It seems that Apple’s main goal—at least from a consumer perspective—is to make it easier for shoppers to buy physical products, apps and online goods using their iOS devices. |
One source was quoted as saying “[Apple’s] ambitions are very, very serious,” which, when you think about it, makes sense as they have almost 800 million users with iTunes accounts, almost all of which are tied to a credit card or debit card. If Apple were to bring in a payments system or mobile wallet solution, it’d have a base of users who were already heavily invested in the Apple ecosystem.
It seems that Apple’s main goal—at least from a consumer perspective—is to make it easier for shoppers to buy physical products, apps and online goods using their iOS devices. It’s about creating a seamless service that draws payment information effortlessly from iTunes.
It’s unknown, however, if this means bucking the current Apple model of avoiding NFC, instead opting to take up Apple’s iBeacon technology in conjunction with the 5s’ touch ID biometric scanner.
If Apple’s plan comes to fruition, it would see them squaring off against the likes of PayPal, Stripe and Square as they all vie for a place in the mobile money market. Interestingly, it’ll also place Apple in direct competition with Google once again as it goes up against Google Wallet. It’d also mean that both Apple and Google would become two of the largest payment platforms around, dwarfing that of PayPal by a huge margin.
Vaughn Highfield is the editor of payment technologies Website Total Payments run by Terrapinn Digital, and spends most of his days writing content around the busy topic of the future of payments. Perhaps one day you’ll see him at a payments conference or expo, he’s certainly tall enough to spot. He can be reached at [email protected]. This blog originally appeared on totalpayments.org.
