Apple Investigating iBeacon-Assisted Mobile Payment Methods

[mazz0]

On the phone maybe; here in UK you are no longer able to get a bank card from any major bank without NFC built in.

Yeah, you can get it on bank cards (although I've never had it on my Natwest ones), but how many shops use it?

Regarding iBeacon or Apple's theoretical proprietary payment system - unless it's made into a standard that anyone can use it's never going to be ubiquitous. Like with iMessage and Facetime - if Apple had made them open standards that anyone could use I would be able to get by with just them, but as it is I have to have Skype as well, and people nag me to get WhatsApp and Viver and other stuff with irritating names.

 

[AlphaHumanus]

IMHO, a pain. Several times I've attempted to use credit card with chip to make payment and been refused because retailers terminal is also seeing NFC on a different card in my wallet. This has strayed too close to reader, amount is greater than you are 'allowed' to make using NFC and its got 'confused'

See any number of stories about retailers terminal reading NFC at far longer distances that the 3-6cm in the story.

Veeeery interesting. I was unaware of this type of problem. Thanks for the info.

 

[kemal]

On the phone maybe; here in UK you are no longer able to get a bank card from any major bank without NFC built in.

Just curious - Does your bank card have the gold electrical contacts on the front? That would not necessarily be an NFC setup but rather a Smart Card / ICC. I have an ICC for when I travel in Europe.

 

[gnasher729]

Hey Hey Hey! You can't go on an Apple forum and call the iProducts Pieces of S***! Oh wait, that's what everyone does.

POS = Point Of Sale. Cash registers, credit card readers, iPhones with software to take payments, they are all POS devices.

 

[ItWasNotMe]

Just curious - Does your bank card have the gold electrical contacts on the front? That would not necessarily be an NFC setup but rather a Smart Card / ICC. I have an ICC for when I travel in Europe.

Bank, ie. Debit card comes with:
- Chip on front with gold contacts - use requires user entering pin
- Strip on rear - in case retailer does not have chip technology or this is different, this is swipe and sign
- built in NFC - wave near terminal - transaction and daily limits - no approval unless bank selects this as one of the 'random' transactions where it requires some authentication

Credit cards generally chip and stripe with contact-less being rolled out as the cards are renewed.

Wave near terminal is supposedly restricted to 10cm, its been shown to be possible to read at up to 90cm

 

[Piggie]

Hear that sound? Thats the death cry of NFC

Like Firewire and USB you mean?

 

[Klae17]

POS = Point Of Sale. Cash registers, credit card readers, iPhones with software to take payments, they are all POS devices.

I needed to add /s.

 

[chrisyab]

Better yes.

In either case, I'm not sure I trust retailers to implement securely. :/

Starbucks, Neiman, Target, huge numbers of banks all flubbing up.

Agreed but is it the technology at fault or the people implementing it?

 

[downpour]

here in UK you are no longer able to get a bank card from any major bank without NFC built in.

Really? Neither my new Lloyds card or my Nationwide card has it. The only one I had heard of was Barclays, and they had some early problems when Channel 4 discovered you could steal unencrypted details from someones card just by bumping a mobile phone against their pocket.

www.channel4.com/news/millions-of-barclays-card-users-exposed-to-fraud

 

[ItWasNotMe]

Really? Neither my new Lloyds card or my Nationwide card has it. The only one I had heard of was Barclays, and they had some early problems when Channel 4 discovered you could steal unencrypted details from someones card just by bumping a mobile phone against their pocket.

www.channel4.com/news/millions-of-barclays-card-users-exposed-to-fraud

Ok, Santander doesn't either. For some reason only the Halifax part of Lloyds seems to be issuing contactless and Nationwide prides itself on not being a bank ( the theme of my original post was that the banks make it difficult/impossible not to get one)

The following are claimed to:
Capital One
Co-operative Bank Plc
Barclays (Barclays Bank and Barclaycard)
HSBC
Lloyds Banking Group (Halifax)
MBNA
The Royal Bank of Scotland Group (NatWest and RBS)

There are claims and counter claims about them being readable, and whether this would be any use given they are supposed to issue one-time cvv's.

 

[downpour]

There are claims and counter claims about them being readable, and whether this would be any use given they are supposed to issue one-time cvv's.

Channel 4 ordered and received goods from Amazon using the details they had copied from the card. That doesn't sound very secure to me.

 

[ItWasNotMe]

Channel 4 ordered and received goods from Amazon using the details they had copied from the card. That doesn't sound very secure to me.

There are also proven abilities to read them at up to 90cm - you don't need to brush your mobile against someone. Per my original post - I don't want one but its being forced on me by the banks I use.

In fact I don't want any technology unless it can be evidenced that I took some part in the transaction.

To bring this slightly back on thread, solution outlined by Apple doesn't seem to require this either, just information thats known by the device; which of course may no longer be in my possession.

 

[Tech198]

This is crying out, just waiting to be hacked any time now.