I’ve been involved in a contactless payment project, in fact, maybe one of the biggest projects in Spain.
Among other powerful reasons (such a VISA and Mastercard support) one reason to choose NFC as a technology to implement contactless payment is because it’s an standard. I do love standards
Apple has shown its contactless solutions (it starts at 43:11) as a breakthrough. But, it has been so? Not really. In a few lines;
-
Many of the benefits shown in Apple Pay presentation are related with an standard NFC – Contactless solution; short time in payment actions, secure, no need to type your pin credit card, tokenization of your ID (HCE does it), or the Secure element (OMG, it already existed; look here and here)
-
Few of the benefits shown are Apple development, such as Touch ID, Passport integration, scan and store your credit card. Truth must honored and other companies have done similar added value solutions over its own contactless implementations
Conclusions?
- Apple seems to be the main innovator in contactless.
- The truth is that Apple has accepted a pre-existing standard instead of being a kind of being a lone ranger in this business. Maybe because of the VISA and Mastercard pressure, maybe because there were a piece of cake to be eaten by someone else, maybe because Apple plans to develop its own whole payment solutions wasn’t so different for end-user and it requires a lot of effort (security certifications with banks, VISA, Mastercard and so on).
- Apple was the last important player in adopt NFC for contactless payments, what by its importance may it’s the final push to this tecnology
- Apple knows very well how to play the game and its marketing it’s extremely effective