Now, would (Costco) be able to pull Apple Pay off without ticking off their current banking-credit card carrier, American Express? Perhaps the two could co-exist. I would think this could work based upon how many people are so attached to their iPhones & don't have an AmEx card; this could be huge for Costco.
Any ideas, opinions or predictions?
With Apple Pay, as with other wallets, you register the cards you want to use. Apple Pay allows Mastercard, Visa and AmEx from major banks.
No. ApplePay uses one time payment keys instead of your credit card number so in the event of a data breach the key is useless.
The tokenized credit card number itself does not change.
As with any NFC payment, it's the other authentication cryptograms based on the purchase, that do change each time.
On the flip side as no personal data is exchange and they payment keys are one time use, it allows significant more privacy in that stores cannot track you by your credit card number.
If you enter a store award number, then yes, they can associate you with the token number.
The point of tokenization is NOT to take the merchant totally out of the loop. The point is, that if the merchant gets hacked, your bank can simply issue your device a new token for the same real account number, and the old one becomes useless.
Hopefully this will work in the UK, however with the token system the banks might need to upgrade.
The banks will not only need to upgrade for the tokenization, but if the stories are true about Apple taking a cut, there'll have to be negotiation on that point.
Please
read my post here, which details the various issues for Apple Pay in Europe.
I always thought that Tap-to-Pay required a tap because the device(s) used that tap to determine when the connection between the devices was to be negotiated. If there were several within close proximity, the tap would be a point of reference. But I've never used it, so I don't know.
You simply have to get within an inch or so. Placing your phone gently against it is fine, and works well.
It's almost too bad they use the word "tap", since that could be a bad idea with a gold Apple Watch, or any other device that might get scratched or dented.