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Apple is continuing with its plans to introduce a mobile payments service and has began interviewing senior payments industry executives to take on roles within the company, reports Re/code.

Apple is looking to fill two new positions, focused on building an electronic payment service based on the company's existing iTunes accounts. Millions of customers have personal accounts that already store credit card information, allowing them to make purchases within the Apple Store app, in retail stores, and through iTunes. Apple hopes to expand this to third-party avenues as well, both online and at retail locations.
The company has been meeting with potential applicants for two new positions at Apple focused exclusively on building a business around the hundreds of millions of credit cards it already has on file. Apple is seeking to fill head of product and head of business development positions, one of these people said.

"Their ambitions are very, very serious," one of the sources said.
Apple's interest in the mobile payment arena has been rumored for years but gained renewed attention in early 2014, when The Wall Street Journal announced the company was working on a new mobile payment service, hoping to allow people to use their iOS devices to make purchases for physical goods in apps and on the web as well as in retail stores using payment info stored in iTunes accounts.

Apple has also been in talks with Paypal about a possible partnership and reportedly mulled an acquisition of mobile payments company Square, though it appears an acquisition did not pan out.

The company's mobile payment system will possibly be tied to Touch ID, the fingerprint scanning home button built into the iPhone 5s and reportedly slated for the upcoming iPhone 6 and future iPads. Apple CEO Tim Cook said in January that mobile payments were "one of the thoughts" behind Touch ID. He has also said that Apple is "intrigued" with mobile payments and noted there's a "big opportunity on the platform."

Apple has promised new hardware, software, and services across 2014, and it's possible that a mobile payment solution could come later this year, though a set date is unclear as the company is clearly still in the hiring stages.

Article Link: Apple Continues Pursuing Mobile Payment Solution, Seeking to Hire Industry Executives
 

taptic

macrumors 65816
Dec 5, 2012
1,341
437
California
Oh, please. Not PayPal... the only pal they are is the one that always needs to borrow money indefinitely.
 

Piggie

macrumors G3
Feb 23, 2010
9,107
3,969
A lot of news for Apple today

Indeed, shame they have no products :(

All corporate hot air.

At least other companies give us info on the new things they are working on.

We want a lot (Tim promised a lot for this year)

I guess all we will get is a 0.7" larger iphone and a tweeked iPad and thats that for another year.
 

tjl3

macrumors 6502a
Mar 8, 2012
595
4
To buy groceries or widgets or something, you rest your thumb on the Home button, and.. you're done.

Think of it like this. Walk into a grocery store, you can check in via iBeacon. Why check in? Well, bring up your grocery list, or their deals/coupons, your previous purchases, stock, etc. Once you're done, you get in the checkout line, say line 13. You click line 13 on your phone, once the cashier is done scanning, you rest your thumb on the home button, and you're done.

--

What I am surprised at is Apple hasn't built their retail store around this type of a concept, b/c I think it would be really nifty. Walk into an Apple Store and check in. Once checked in, you can make purchases, line up for help, browse products, get deals. Have all their in store devices connected on this system so prospective buyers can also line up. If you need assistance, you just get in line via the app. When a genius is ready to help, he pings you with a location (i.e. by the iPads), and maybe his profile pops up so you know who you're looking for. So it gives you an ETA so you can go play, go get a coffee, whatever.

If you're there to make a simple purchase, you go inside, buy on phone, and a genius brings it out to you, much like how their Apple Store app works now, except you have to go get in line and verify your identity.

Why would this be good? Well, Apple Store has a lot of traffic. People will want to be on that cool system too! Instead of awkwardly walking the store for a genius, just get in line via the app. Brand the whole system, and sell it to other retail stores. For clothing store, looking for a specific size or to try something on? Ping an employee using this retail system. Sitting down at Sbux and want to buy a latte, buy through the app and pick it up when its done.

This would all be made simple b/c of Apple's iBeacon technology. And who benefits the most? Small startup retail stores. Go in, check in on social media and get a daily deal! Apple would also benefit, everyone would 'want' to be on Apple's retail system, using Apple devices.

End of rant that went on a huge tangent.
 

elev8d

macrumors 6502
Dec 9, 2008
340
102
This has the potential to be huge and could edge out square and paypal. Even thought they both have a massive head start. Especially if they start taking all the fees and edge out visa and mastercard.
 

V.K.

macrumors 6502a
Dec 5, 2007
716
466
Toronto, Canada
What I really want to know is how this is going to be implemented. Is it going to be compatible with NFC? available for other mobile OSs? don't know about the US but in Canada (and I think in Europe) ISO/IEC 14443 based credit (and more recently debit) cards have become quite common in the last few years. As far as I understand ISO/IEC 14443 is a part of and is compatible with NFC so I imagine people with android phones should be able to use their phones for payments instead of their credit cards. I don't think I've seen people doing that with their phones though, but as I said, ISO/IEC 14443 based credit cards are quite common, particularly Mastercards with Pay pass, and people do use them. I use mine all the time. It's very convenient but is limited to 25$ or in some cases $50 per transaction.
By now most big department stores and supermarkets accept them as well as all fast food and coffee shop chains. Even some smaller stores accept them. But this took a number of years and it does require the merchants to upgrade their equipment.

So what is Apple planning here? If it's going to be something based on a new technology (ibeacons?) they'll have a hard time convincing merchants to us it. it might still work though if they don't restrict it to IOS only. But if it's going to be iOS only, I don't see it going anywhere.
 

Alumeenium

macrumors regular
May 15, 2013
200
68
dead tech, Visa and Big Banking will never let it happen

we've been hearing hype for the past 15 years about digital currency and RFID

iTunes is one of the worlds biggest digital stores,
and yet the average iPhone user rarely know their passwords to purchase
 

Ericstephen

macrumors member
Oct 2, 2013
80
0
Before long, I think Apple will improve Touch ID so that the "wood glue fingerprint" will no longer work. I think it's a very minimal security risk, but something they need to address before processing payments for nearly every good and service on Earth.

----------

Apple takes the commission fee instead of Paypal; billion $ business.

Just think if Apple took .5% of every transaction they processed with Touch ID. You're talking a lot of $. I know nothing of payment processing, so it's difficult to envision what Apple's payment platform would look like, besides the obvious---but if it's so obvious, why wasn't it done a year ago, or 4 years ago. Wonder what they have up their sleeve.
 

V.K.

macrumors 6502a
Dec 5, 2007
716
466
Toronto, Canada
Before long, I think Apple will improve Touch ID so that the "wood glue fingerprint" will no longer work. I think it's a very minimal security risk, but something they need to address before processing payments for nearly every good and service on Earth.



I think Touch ID is secure enough already. I mean how many cases have been reported of someone's Touch id being hacked in a real life situation? I'm not taking about a controlled lab experiment with a perfect fingerprint and a process that took 30 hours. AKAIK the answer is ZERO.

The real trick here IMO is to persuade merchants to start using whatever system Apple comes up with.
 

pedromcm.pm

macrumors 6502
Mar 23, 2014
483
0
Porto, Portugal
Indeed, shame they have no products :(

All corporate hot air.

At least other companies give us info on the new things they are working on.

We want a lot (Tim promised a lot for this year)

I guess all we will get is a 0.7" larger iphone and a tweeked iPad and thats that for another year.

That's an irrational point of view, for sure. Apple is a huge company now, there's no need to apply SOME of the principles that were applied during the Jobs era.

They can and should diversify themselves if they want growth. However, to do it right, they need to lay the foundations, otherwise it's the same as the other useless companies have been doing for the past 20 years, like hp, Dell, etc.

That foundation is Software, services and infrastructure. For each brainless analyst that vomits some crap, to stupid comments on the Internet, Apple is deploying billions on software development (OSes, professional software, consumer software), even more billions on huge data centers, new sources of energy, in-house designs of the world's most advanced chips, and new services, like the ones in this article.

If you do not admire that, maybe you should look elsewhere. However, I do love where this story is going. There's not a single company doing all of it, especially at this scale.

Not to long ago, Apple was selling 5 million macs a year. Remember that.

One thing I'm particularly looking forward this year: A8 chip. The a7 beast is still unmatched. How's that possible? And now with the GPU hires, patents and rumors... Oh boy
 

afsnyder

macrumors 65816
Jan 7, 2014
1,270
33
Indeed, shame they have no products :(

All corporate hot air.

At least other companies give us info on the new things they are working on.

We want a lot (Tim promised a lot for this year)

I guess all we will get is a 0.7" larger iphone and a tweeked iPad and thats that for another year.

What about OS X 10.10 or 11 or whatever and iOS 8 :/
 

octothorpe8

macrumors 6502
Feb 27, 2014
424
0
Think of it like this. Walk into a grocery store, you can check in via iBeacon. Why check in? Well, bring up your grocery list, or their deals/coupons, your previous purchases, stock, etc. Once you're done, you get in the checkout line, say line 13. You click line 13 on your phone, once the cashier is done scanning, you rest your thumb on the home button, and you're done.

Yep, it's marketers' wet dream, right there, following you around and learning all your behavior and movements to serve you more ads and "customized experiences", all while skimming a percentage off the top of every purchase (and who pays for that, you think?)

I'll keep using cash for the most part, thanks.
 
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