At first glance, Tap to Pay seems interesting: it looks like iPhones from 2018 can be used with Tap to Pay via updated software. Apart from Apple devices, Tap to Pay is said to accept Android phones, and credit and debit cards from American Express, Discover, Mastercard, and Visa.
Before you, the merchant, get too excited, and bin your existing terminal, note that Tap to Pay is United States only for now, and only works with payments processor Stripe.
Even if Tap to Pay was available in New Zealand, Stripe charges local merchants 2.9 per cent plus 30 cents for each successful transaction. Working out processors' blended fee structures requires wearing The Great Magic Wighat and waving the Holy Chickenfoot around, but people in the payments industry went how much? when I mentioned Stripe's charges to them, but it does support eftpos.
Tap to Pay is a natural extension of Apple's payments services. Apple Pay, which hit New Zealand shores in 2016, two years after Australia, now works even better as more vendors have added PayWave terminals, and the built-in digital Wallet in which you can store your credit, debit and public transport cards.
Well, the latter is possible in a few metropolitan areas around the world, either by storing the public transport cards themselves, or directly debiting from your wallet. AT Hop, is no go for now, but sticking a card to the back of an iPhone with double-sided tape is a workable public transport life hack.
Despite initial argy-bargy with the banks and credit card issuers who felt threatened by Apple muscling in on their lucrative fee-earning territory, the Cupertino company has got onside with traditional financial institutions and continues to extend its efforts in the area.
Apple Pay now has the Cash feature, which lets you send money via iMessages, with no transaction fees.
There's the Apple Card too, issued through Goldman Sachs, which can be added to the Wallet. I've been lusting after the standalone titanium Apple Card that only has the cardholder's name laser engraved into it, and nothing else.
Unfortunately for greedy old me, the Apple Card is only available in the US, ditto Cash, and my friends there won't let me use their addresses to foil the geoblocking.
You might ask yourself why Apple is in the payments biz and why it's putting in such an effort to make its services work as well as it does.
The truth of the matter is that if Apple didn't do it, and stick payments at the forefront of iPhones, someone else would get in there and fill the vacuum.
Over-the-top payments systems that work on Android as well as iDevices is not what Apple wants as it would entice people to the Dark Side. Google Pay sort of works on Apple's iOS mobile operating system, but it's not fully featured and is limited to the US and India.
In fact, it's quite surprising that Apple waited three years after Google kicked off its digital wallet before launching Pay.
So yes, payments are absolutely vital for mobile device makers, and we're going to see more development in this area.
One thing that my horrible friends who don't keep their phones charged up would love is a system that works when the device is dead.
Imagine standing there, sweating bullets as the Countdown cashier gives you that cold hurry up stare, while you, the physical wallet-less Digital Native, desperately try to think of how people used to pay for groceries in the past. Now there's a first-world problem that needs to be solved urgently.
