The world of technology is dominated by Apple through its Macbooks, iPhones, iTunes , iPads and other devices, and now it is all set to take on the banking sector with its new innovation. The innovation – “Apple Pay”, is basically a person-to-person (P2P) transaction system, used through its Wallet app. Two iPhone users who have a Touch ID can now make a sales transaction with ease. This innovation is the brainchild of Timothy Hurley, currently Senior Director of Apple Pay Engineering, and former employee of CitiBank and Apple engineer Ahmed Khan. The Apple Pay with all its exciting and unique features would provide the customers with a great opportunity to experience mobile payment transactions with much precision and clarity. But much like all its innovations this is limited to only to iPhone 6 and 6 Plus users, forcing customers to purchase Apple products in order to experience Apple Pay.
All transaction made via Apple Pay will be done through Wifi or Bluetooth technology and near field communication (NFC) will be used to verify all transactions. All financial credentials and payment data will be transferred from one electronic device to another using various encryption methods, for obvious security reasons.
In a world where people are more inclined to use wireless technology for monetary transactions, Apple Pay does promise to simply the process of P2P electronic transfers. However, its success can only be determined with time. To increase the sphere of Apple Pay’s reach, the upcoming Apple Watch will also be Apply Pay compatible.
In the past,with regard to wireless money transactions PayPal has been one of the major online tools for easy money transactions. But when Apple Pay enters the market, PayPal and other financial technology companies would be hit the hardest, similar to the situation Spotify was in when Apple Music was launched. Besides that, it could also be a severe blow to various R & D projects banks are investing in to come up with wearable technology for wireless payments. Keeping in mind Apple’s exponential growth in recent times, it is very likely that they would tap the large payments market making use of this P2P technology, taking a direct swipe at traditional banking institutions.
Apple’s dominance through its products is reducing the market share for other technology giants, restricting their scope of research and development. Even though Apple products provide precision, warranty and performance much better than other devices, it restricts its usage to its product users only.
With Apple Pay already launched in the UK and US, we cannot wait to see what Apple plans to do next!
Authored by Matisa Majumder.
Image Source/Attribution- here, governed by Creative Commons License CC BY- SA 2.0
