Tag: Mobile payment

Apple Pay Adds (Limited) Support For China’s UnionPay

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: WSJ.com

Almost one month after its official launch, Apple Pay has finally added support for UnionPay, China’s most popular payment card (and the only government-sanctioned payment and inter-bank clearinghouse in mainland China), with over 4.5 billion cards issued. Right now, payment is limited to purchasing digital goods on its regional App Store only. But given China’s booming ecommerce sector, which is projected to hit $409 billion this year, it seems safe to assume that Apple Pay will be expanding its functionality in China soon.

Apple Pay Updates: 1 Million Credit Cards Activated

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: ReadWrite

On Monday, at a technology conference organized by the Wall Street Journal, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that Apple had activated 1 million credit cards in the first 72 hours after Apple Pay launched, calling it “already a huge hit.”

That sounds impressive—until you consider that there are more than 600 million credit and debit cards in the United States, and Apple has sold an estimated 20 million Apple Pay-compatible iPhone 6 and 6 Plus units. Also considering that many users might link multiple cards, it’s difficult to come up with a clean figure for Apple Pay’s market share among eligible iPhone 6 users.

 

Etsy Introduces Credit Card Reader

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: Re/code

With Apple Pay going public this week, it looks like mobile payment is undoubtedly l’air du temps ( fancy French for “all the rage right now.”) Not to be left behind, online marketplace Etsy will start offering free credit card readers to some of its U.S. sellers as part of an effort to extend its reach beyond the Internet and explore a new revenue stream (Etsy charge 2.75 percent of each transaction). The Square-esque dongle will be used in conjunction with an Etsy app to allow sellers to accept credit card and debit card purchases. So next time you visit a hipster craft fair, prepare to swipe your card on one of these.

Paying with Your Phone: The Present & Future of Mobile Payment

Posted on by Lab Team

Download and read this POV here

With the introduction of Apple Pay, mobile payment is poised to hit the mainstream. The general public feels optimistic about its future, too. Survey reveals that over two-thirds of people believed that it’s likely that mobile payments will become a major way people make payments in stores in the next five years.

But look around. Hardly anyone you know is paying with their smartphones. Why?

Find out the reasons and more about mobile payment by downloading our newest POV here.

 

How Apple Pay Could Bring Competitive Edge To iAd

Posted on by Lab Team

Source: Digiday

To nobody’s surprise, Apple Pay will soon be integrated into iAd, Apple’s mobile ad network. According to reports, the updated iAd mobile ad network will feature Apple Pay in the form of a tap-to-buy button embedded in mobile ads, which could potentially boost direct response and impulse purchase. As iAd struggles to compete with Google’s AdWords, this integration could give Apple the competitive edge it needs.

Obama Signs Initiative To Speed EMV Card Adoption

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: Ars Technica

Last Friday, President Obama signed an initiative to help speed the adoption of more secure credit cards in the US. The initiative, nicknamed “BuySecure,” will require credit card companies to produce EMV-standard cards with embedded chips that offer more security measures, instead of the magnetic stripe cards that are common today. With this initiative in place, many national brands — especially the ones suffered credit card breaches like Home Depot and Target — pledged to start using chip-and-pin terminals for EMV cards by January 2015. It will be interesting to see how the more secure cards stack up against the competing NFC-based mobile payment approach led by Apple Pay.

Facebook Might Drop Payment Into Its Messaging App

Posted on by Lab Team

Look out, PayPal and Venmo! According to leaked images, Facebook might build a mobile payment platform that’s seamlessly integrated into its Messenger app. With the service enabled, users could send money to friends with the ease of sending a picture—a much more convenient way than launching another app. Combined with its vast user base, Facebook might just make a grand entry into mobile payment. Whether consumers would trust a company with a spotty track record when it comes to user data, however, remains to be seen.

Square Attempts To Fend Off Apple Pay With New App Cash

Posted on by Lab Team

In its latest attempts to fend off the forthcoming Apple Pay, Square introduced a new Cash App that allows people to text or email money without setting up a Square account. The recipient doesn’t need the app to get a notification, although they do need to submit their banking information for the transfer to work. Overall, it appears to be more user-friendly than other payment apps like PayPal or Venmo, but it seems doubtful that it will prevent Apply Pay from taking over the mobile payment market.

6 Things You Need To Know About The New “Apple Pay”

Posted on by Richard Yao

Back at the beginning of the year, reports suggested that Apple would enter the mobile payments space, which were paid off today: Apple officially revealed the NFC-based mobile payment function along with the new iPhone 6. To get ready for this imminent shift in the payment field, here are six things you need to know about Apple’s bid for mobile payment:

1. It’s integrated into the Passbook App and iWatch 

The updated Passbook App acts as the hub for Apple Pay. By adding your credit card information with the iSight camera and pulling from the various third-party apps that support mobile payment and centralizing the function, Apple’s “ticket stub” app just become the de facto mobile wallet. Meanwhile, the iWatch can act as an extra payment option.

2. Major credit card companies have signed up

To make the new payment function easier for users to adopt, Apple has been working with all major U.S. credit card companies, including Visa, MasterCard, and American Express. In addition, Apple already has payment credentials for some 800 million people globally through iTunes accounts, which will no doubt make the transition from credit card to mobile payment much easier.

3. Many big-name businesses have also signed up

Apple has been signing up volume merchants to familiarize people with paying via mobile. Disney is reportedly outfitting its retail stores with new point-of-sale devices that support NFC. Other retailers, such as Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, McDonald’s, Subway, Whole Food, Walgreens, CVS, and Duane Reade are also among the first wave of businesses getting on board with Apple.

4. It works for online payment as well

By teaming up with online and mobile retailers like Target, GroupOn, Uber, and Open Table, Apple Pay will be seamlessly integrated into ecommerce.

5. It uses Touch ID and tokenization for extra security

Apple is address security concerns with “tokenization”, which uses one-time codes to secure the transfer of payment information. However, not all NFC payment terminals can accept this type of payment, which means all merchants currently using the non-token model of NFC payment will need to update their end devices to get on board with Apple’s security standard.

6. It will lead to mass adoption of NFC in the US

NFC-based payment has been around on selected Android devices for a while, and has been doing well in some emerging markets, such as China. But with Apple finally getting on the NFC wagon, mass adaptation of the NFC mobile payment seems practically inevitable. In fact, the NFC payment market is estimated to grow to $100 billion in 2016, so it’s time to either get on board, or get left behind.

 

 

Amazon Challenging Square With New Payment Service

Posted on by Lab Team

Amazon new credit card processing service for small businesses, known as Amazon Local Register, marks Amazon’s continued expansion into mobile payments following its recent Amazon Wallet launch. This could seriously undercut Square’s current market dominance by offering a lower processing rate and a $10 smartphone cardreader. As the payment war heats up, more competitors can be expected to join.