Google is expanding its User Choice Billing (UCB) pilot program with Spotify among the first participants. It's now officially allowing the music platform's customers to set up service payments outside Google's Play Store.

Back in March, Google teamed up with Spotify to launch the program by giving people the ability to use different payment options. UCB was first available to users in Japan, Australia, and several European countries. Now it’s coming to the United States, Brazil, and South Africa after Google got a “positive response and [feedback]” from the first round. In the coming weeks, Spotify will roll out the third-party payment option to Android users only, so they can choose how they want to pay for a Premium subscription.

Open and fair platform

After it rolls out, people who want to subscribe to Spotify Premium will see another option to use the platform’s own service instead. The main difference so far is you can't track your subscription on Spotify's billing service, whereas you can with Google. Other than that, it’s business as usual: you enter your credit card information to pay and you’re done. 

Google is currently allowing other non-gaming apps on the Play Store to enroll in the UCB pilot program. Developers do have to follow certain UX guidelines created by Google that detail how to implement the feature. Looking at the guidelines, developers must include an information and billing choice page whenever a user is trying to purchase a service. The displayed price must also be upfront and center.

The full list of UCB participants is unknown, but we do know that the dating app Bumble will soon join the program “in select countries [within] the coming months.” 

Spotify says it champions UCB because it sees the program as “Google [allowing] more choice and competition” on the Play Store. The company wants more platform fairness for apps to thrive and “give users of [the free service] the ability to subscribe and make purchases directly [on the] app.”

We asked Google what it hopes to achieve with UCB for users specifically, plus why gaming apps are currently excluded from the program. This story will be updated if we hear back.

The future of app stores

As for Apple and its popular App Store, we strongly doubt users will see anything remotely resembling UCB. Apple has made it abundantly clear it does not like third-party payment options on the App Store. It recently forced Telegram to crack down on iOS users creating paid posts because the tech giant wasn’t getting a cut. And then there’s Apple’s 2021 court battle with Epic Games after Apple removed Fortnite from the App Store because of similar actions.

Change, though, may be inevitable. The Open Markets Act is a proposed antitrust bill aimed at stopping both Google and Apple “from engaging in harmful behaviors towards their competitors.” Google appears to be more than willing to play nicer, but it remains to be seen if and when Apple will decide to do the same.

Apple introduced new features to its Apple Card credit card during the Apple Spring Forward 2021 Event with Apple Card Family.

Tim Cook introduced the expanded financial service by noting that when two people share an Apple Card, the credit scores of the two are not affected equally, meaning that one person's credit is more improved over time by using the card than the other person's. 

• Apple M1 chip: performance, specs and release date
• macOS 11 Big Sur: release date, name and features
• macOS 11 Big Sur problems: how to fix the most common issues

Apple is working to change this so that the credit benefit of the Apple Card – and presumably negative credit activity, as well – are distributed evenly among the responsible persons.

Apple is also introducing the ability of anyone in the family over the age of 13 to use Apple Card through Apple Card Family, which allows parents or guardians to set spending limits and controls on a minor's Apple Card use.

All in all, it's an improved system for managing family purchasing activity through the Apple ecosystem, while also being pretty weird considering that Apple is a tech company, not a financial services company, but here we are in 2021.

• Stay up to date on all the latest tech news with the TechRadar newsletter

Digital payment company Square has been awarded a conditional license to operate as a bank.

The company, run by Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey, now aims to launch Square Financial Services by 2021. It will be established as a Square subsidiary, but will work independently.

Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, Square Financial Services be able to offer small business loans and deposit products for SMBs.

• Blockchain opportunities for banks
• Banking security in 2020: what to expect
• Banks being targeted with major malware campaign

Banking services

The approval came from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and a charter approval from Utah Department of Financial Institution.

“FDIC staff found that Square satisfied each of the statutory factors required for approval, subject to certain conditions. One of the conditions would require the proposed bank to maintain levels of capital that are significantly higher than typical FDIC-insured banks,” FDIC Chairman Jelena McWilliams said in a statement.

The leadership team at Square Financial Services will include Lewis Goodwin as its Chief Executive Officer and Brandon Soto as its Chief Financial Officer.

Before Square, Varo Money got approval from FDIC to operate as a bank in recent weeks. While LendingClub made its way into banking by acquiring Radius Bancorp for $185 million.

• Best personal finance software of 2020: free and paid versions for budgeting

Via: FDIC

Apple has officially announced via a press release that its Apple Card, an actual credit card launched in partnership with Goldman Sachs and MasterCard, is available now for everyone in the US.

“We’re thrilled with the overwhelming interest in Apple Card and its positive reception,” Apple Pay VP Jennifer Bailey said in the press release. “Customers have told us they love Apple Card’s simplicity and how it gives them a better view of their spending.”

The Apple Card touts several tech-savvy features, like zero fees and an easy-to-understand management app interface that promotes transparency of a user's financial activity and apparently encourages users to pay less interest... somehow.

While the Apple Card is a true-to-life physical credit card – that comes in metal, no less – the company intends for users to manage and use their Apple Card through the Wallet app on their iPhones. 

For the past few weeks at the time of writing, Apple allowed many to test out the Apple Card in a beta test. Today, anyone in the US can apply for the Apple Card right now through the Wallet app and, once approved, use the card digitally in minutes.

Why an Apple Card?

The Apple Card brings with it several more attractive, quality-of-life features that Apple hopes will paint it as the credit card of the future. These include a Daily Cash program that gives users a percentage of several qualifying purchases with key partners, particularly Uber, in a neatly contained "Apple Cash" pool from which they can apply that cash to other purchases.

Daily Cash includes 2% when using the Apple Card through Apple Pay, 3% when buying anything from Apple's online and physical stores and services and 1% on all purchases made using the titanium Apple Card.

Apple Card users also have access to 24/7 support simply by texting a contact in Messages on iPhone, and due to the card's supposedly supreme security, not even Apple is aware of the specifics of users' Apple Card transactions.

But, ultimately, the Apple Card is the latest in the company's attempts to keep its existing user base within its ecosystem however possible amid slipping hardware sales. Not only can Apple be your phone, your laptop, your watch and your headphones, but now Apple is also your music service, your TV service, your cloud storage and – today – in a way, your money.

• These are the best Macs that we've tested in the past year

UPDATE: All of NSW transport services are now compatible with contactless payment, as buses have finally made the switch.

When Transport for NSW first introduced the ability to pay for your transit fare using your credit card or phone’s contactless payment functionality, the feature was rather limited.

Initially, it was only available for light rail and ferries, and you wouldn’t receive any of the rewards that you normally would when using your Opal. Now, much of this has changed.

As Transport for NSW has officially partnered with CommBank, passengers paying for their train, light rail, Sydney Metro or ferry fare using contactless payment will receive the same benefits as if they used an Opal card.

This includes off-peak pricing, the transfer discount applied when changing between modes of transport, the half price fares after travelling eight times in a week, and the caps applied to daily, weekly and Sunday trips.

• NSW commuters can now use Samsung Pay on Opal terminals while locked

Although the partnership is with CommBank, this is simply due to the company's key role in Australian contactless payment infrastructure and any format is compatible – including Visa, Mastercard, American Express and smartphone systems.

There are some caveats however – the system only applies to adult fares, so senior and concession commuters will want to keep using their physical Opal cards for the time being. 

While buses don’t yet have access to the feature, they’ll be getting it “soon”, according to the Transport NSW post, so we can expect to all-but ditch our Opal cards by the end of the year.

• Uber's flying taxi will slash your commute by 2023

Uber joins the party

Another win for Sydney commuters comes from the likes of Uber, which has started to roll out a new feature for its ride-sharing app that integrates public transport information as an alternative to get to their destination.

Sydney is the first city in the Southern Hemisphere to see the feature added, and only the fourth in the world following Denver, Boston and London.

When users select their destination using the company’s app, the “Public Transport” option will appear beneath the regular host of Uber offerings, and once selected, it will show real-time transit alternatives including bus, train, ferry and light rail.

Included in the details on offer are the pricing of the whole trip, how long it will take, as well as directions to walk to the nearest station, bus stop or ferry terminal.

Uber is using Australia as a testing ground for a few of its services – passenger drone service Uber Air will be trialled in Melbourne in 2020, and the company has launched ScUber in Queensland to take passengers on a tour of the Great Barrier Reef.

• Uber launches ScUber: an underwater ride-hailing service

If you've ever bought anything online, there's a good chance you've got a PayPal account. But while the money transfer service is most closely associated with the digital world, the company is now looking to expand to more traditional forms of banking.

Fancy getting your hands on a PayPal debit card? It could happen soon according to The Wall Street Journal. Teaming up with a range of banks in the US, select PayPal users will be able to pick up a PayPal debit card from a Delaware Bank, while you'll be able to deposit checks directly into your PayPal account by taking a photo in-app thanks to a bank in Georgia. A bank in Utah will also use PayPal as the means for conducting personal and small commercial loans.

As for PayPal's own staff, they'll have the option of having their wages paid directly into their PayPal accounts.

Online banking, offline world

It's not the first time PayPal has tried its hand at physical banking fused with the digital world. It's already put out a PayPal Cash Card, and a prepay Mastercard too. If you've used one of these services, you're likely to be one of the first to be offered the new services as they roll out in a limited capacity.

As the locations listed above suggest, this is going to be a US-focussed initiative. We'll keep you posted on other territories if and when they get involved.

It makes more sense in the States in many respects, where "bankless" people (those without credit and debit cards, reliant on prepaid cards) are more common than in other territories.

• Five top tips on how to get a great refurbished phone deal

PayPal has released an updated version of its iOS app featuring Siri integration, which will allow users to use the voice assistant to send and request money. 

The new feature was announced on PayPal’s official blog, and will be available in multiple languages across 30 countries.

Siri integration is a big part of PayPal’s efforts to make peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions as easy as possible for its customers and grow mobile use.

Easy peasy Apple squeezy

According to PayPal, sending money between friends and family is one of the main ways people use its service, as people increasingly turn away from cash and look to online banking via smartphones for convenience.

The company says it expects the volume of P2P transactions will only increase over the coming holiday period, predicting more than 17 million P2P transactions in the month of December alone.

In light of this, PayPal is calling Siri integration “an early holiday present” for its users, which it hopes will make their lives easier over the holiday season. 

If you have the PayPal app installed on an iPhone or iPad running iOS 10, there are a number of voice command options that will call Siri to action, such as “Hey Siri, send Bill $50 using PayPal” or “Hey Siri, request $30 from Jennifer with PayPal.”

This is a positive move for Apple as well as for PayPal, proving that the company’s decision to open Siri’s programming interface to third-party developers was a good one, which should see Siri become a more useful and natural AI assistant. 

You can see the new feature in action below:

• iOS 11 could see Siri improve even more

Following the release of iOS 10, Apple Pay functionality has now arrived on the web at large, and some sites are already catering for the payment system – with Mac users set to benefit from the service with the release of macOS Sierra next week.

Currently, Apple Pay is now live with Time Inc, allowing folks to purchase subscriptions to its various publications (and other offerings in due course), and other payment services like Shopify and Squarespace have announced support for Apple's system on the web.

Expect a lot more websites to adopt Apple Pay going forward.

Jen Wong, President of Digital of Time Inc, commented: "Offering Apple Pay as a checkout option for our products and services provides an easier, frictionless purchase experience for existing and new customers."

Compatible devices

You can make purchases using Apple Pay and the Touch ID fingerprint scanner in Safari using your iPhone 6 or later, or iPad Air 2, iPad Pro, or iPad mini 3 or better – or on any 2012 or later Mac running macOS Sierra.

With the Mac, you'll authenticate your purchase via a hook-up with an iPhone 6 (or later) running iOS 10 or an Apple Watch running watchOS 3. So this option won't be available to everyone with a Mac computer.

The latest incarnation of Apple's desktop OS, Sierra, will be released next Tuesday, although you can already download the final release candidate which should be the same as the finished version to all intents and purposes (barring the discovery of any major flaws).

Sierra brings Macs and iOS devices even closer together, with elements like a Universal Clipboard which allows for direct cutting and pasting between Apple computers and the iPhone/iPad. It also introduces the ability to unlock your Mac simply by being in the proximity of the machine with your Apple Watch or iOS gadget.

Apple Pay launched in the UK in July 2015, and back in April of this year, Barclays signed up to the service, the last major bank in this country to do so.

Via: MacRumors

• Check out our full round-up of the new features of macOS Sierra

Wallets at the ready - Android Pay is now available on the web through Google's Chrome browser.

So long as you're shopping within Google's browser, and the retailer in question is supporting the search giant's payment system, you'll be able to use Android Pay to check out quickly and securely, taking advantage of its encryption systems and hidden account details.

Android Pay will also now feed into Uber's Payment Rewards program, meaning you'll receive ride discounts if you use the Google service to pay for Uber journeys. In fact, if you're a US user, you'll get 50% off the next ten Uber rides that you use Android Pay to pay for.

More banks

That's not to say the UK goes completely without some Android Pay lovin' though. While US Android Pay users with Chase bank accounts can now also use Android Pay, those in the UK with Santander or TSB cards will be able to sign up for Android Pay "in the coming weeks" too.

Though Apple's Apple Pay service is now available pretty much anywhere that contactless payments are accepted in the US and UK, Android Pay's rollout has been a little slower. Still, it's good to see new banks and features rolling out, and web support will expand its reach considerably.

• How to use Android Pay

It’s been coming for quite some time, with select users around the country getting to test it out in trial form recently, but now, Android Pay has officially launched in Australia.

Unlike competitors Samsung Pay and Apple Pay, which only have the support of a couple of banks apiece, Google’s contactless payment technology is launching with a staggering 28 Australian banking institutions behind it, with more on the way.

To set up Android Pay, download the app from the Google Play Store and then add your credit card by simply snapping a picture of it within the app, and then entering some details. Once you’re setup, you only have to wake your phone and tap it on a contactless payment terminal to start making purchases.

No touching!

You can now use Android Pay wherever contactless payments are accepted, though only Visa and American Express cards are accepted at the moment, with Mastercard support arriving in the coming days.

You can find a complete list of all the participating banks currently supporting Samsung’s NFC payment tech at the Android Pay website.

Though the list is extensive, it’s worth noting that some of the biggest banks, like St. George and Westpac, are listed as ‘coming soon’, and HSBC, Citibank, Commonwealth Bank and National Australia Bank are absent entirely.

• How to use Android Pay

Update: Google has announced that it is beginning its limited trial of Hands Free payments in San Francisco. Here's to hoping that it goes well so that it spreads to more locations.

They say that money talks, but soon you'll be able to literally speak to pay for things, thanks to Google's upcoming hands-free payment technology.

Later this year, Google will be testing a smartphone app that allows users to make purchases at specific stores by simply standing in front of a compatible cash register, and letting the cashier know that they want to pay with Google.

A Bluetooth sensor will then detect the app on the user's phone, automatically billing them and sending them a receipt of the transaction in the process.

The technology sounds quite similar to PayPal Beacon, which was announced in 2013 and also allows customers to pay for items without taking out their phones or wallets.

Cashing out

Google plans to test this experimental payment method in the San Francisco Bay Area at McDonald's and Papa John restaurants, though we'll have to wait a while until the app is available to the general public.

As this is an experiment, details are sketchy on how it will all work in practice, such as what would happen with several hands-free payment users in the vicinity of a register, or whether any further identification will be required to make purchases.

Watch Google's hilarious announcement video below, which plays like a ridiculous late '90s infomercial, complete with frustrated customers struggling to open their own wallets.

• Get all the latest news out of Google IO 2015

Apple Pay may be officially available in Australia, but thanks to its restriction to American Express cards, it can hardly be considered ubiquitous.

And while Google has confirmed Android Pay is arriving this year with local bank support, there still a lot of opportunity for mobile payments to take off before then.

Optus recognises this, and has today launched a range of accessories for its Cash by Optus platform, which will turn your smartphone into a Paywave-compatible device for cashless payments under $100.

Banding together

Optus' new accessory lineup consists of three different options. The first, which is mostly for iOS users but will also work on Android, is an NFC-enabled "Optus Sticker", that brings mobile payment options to almost any device.

Attaching to the back of your smartphone, the sticker pais with the Cash by Optus app and lets you use your phone as though it were a contactless credit card.

The second option is a Cash by Optus SIM card for compatible Android devices. When inserted into an NFC-enabled Android device, the SIM card allows users to make contactless payments via the Cash by Optus app.

The third option, and perhaps the strangest, is a dedicated NFC wristband, which allows customers to make payments without using their phone at all. The Cash by Optus band is designed for joggers who want to leave behind their phone or wallet, but still want the freedom to buy stuff.

Give Optus your money and then spend it

The catch with the Cash by Optus is that it to make it work, you need to manually transfer funds to the Cash by Optus account before you can spend it using one of the above accessories.

By comparison, Apple Pay and Android Pay will connect directly with your bank account, allowing you to spend your money without an interim step along the way.

• Check out our Apple Pay review

While new mobile payment solutions are coming out every few months to compete with the likes of Apple Pay and Android Pay, LG may introduce a more old-school option.

Instead of throwing a payment feature into a smartphone that uses either NFC or QR codes, LG Pay may actually be a universal credit card.

It would hold all your credit card information in one card, letting you choose between CCs with a low-power LCD screen and simple buttons, according to a report and image from Korean news site ETNews.

Ready for MWC?

LG announced late last year that it would soon be launching something called LG Pay to compete with Apple, Android and Samsung's payment systems, though it will at first only be available only in South Korea.

The report from today, however, claims LG's payment solution will reportedly be called 'White Card,' though the photo above also shows it to be labelled LG Pay.

Still, we suggest taking the report with a grain of salt, as this would be a completely different avenue for such a large company to head down if it wants to take on Apple, Samsung and Google's offerings. Universal cards are also already available through smaller companies like Coin and Plastc.

In any case, LG Pay will reportedly be announced next month during MWC 2016, so expect to hear more sooner rather than later.

• Android Pay just caught up to Apple Pay in one major way

Apple Pay's Australian rollout has been slow going. After months of waiting and little movement from Australian banks, the the iPhone 6S maker ended up just partnering with American Express to speed up the international rollout.

Now, with Google's confirmation that Android Pay is heading to Australia in the first half of this year, and Samsung Pay also on the way, we're hearing that Apple's negotiations with the banks haven't stopped, they're just being kept quiet.

According to a report in the SMH today, Apple's non-disclosure agreement with the banks requires the banks to keep quiet, or be liable for tens of millions of dollars.

Of course, these types of contracts are far from uncommon, especially when companies are looking to get their hands on a share of the $2.5 billion annual market for credit card fees.

The best part of this story is that there's still hope Aussie Apple users will get to use Apple Pay without having to get an American Express Card.

Via: SMH

Google's announcement today that Android Pay is getting a major update brought with it the news that the mobile payment service is coming to Australia.

But in a separate post on the Google Australia blog, we know that the search giant has managed to accomplish what Apple couldn't do – work with Australian banks to launch a mobile payment service.

According to the announcement, Google is working with a number of Australian banks to launch Android Pay in Australia. The list of banks is pretty comprehensive too: ANZ, Westpac, Bank of Melbourne, Bank of South Australia, Bendigo Bank, Cuscal, ING DIRECT, Macquarie Bank, and St. George are all name-checked.

Interestingly, that means that both NAB and Commonwealth bank customers will miss out, at least initially, although Google has promised to continue working with more banks throughout the year.

To get around the Australian banks roadblock, Apple instead partnered with American Express in order to get mobile payments happening down under.

Broad access

Thanks to the advanced tap and go infrastructure already installed at retailers around the country, Android Pay will have a rather large network of supported points of sale when it does launch in the first half of 2016.

But Google has also confirmed that it is working directly with a number of retailers to ensure that Android Pay is properly implemented, including 7-Eleven, Brumby's Bakery, Coles Express, Coles Supermarkets, Crust Gourmet Pizza, Domino's Pizza Enterprises Limited, Donut King, Gloria Jean's Coffees, McDonald's, Michel's Patisserie, Pizza Capers, and Telstra.

What's more, Android Pay will also be enabled on a number of local shopping apps, enabling Android users to pay for goods with a faster checkout without having to enter payment details after every purchase. Apps that will support this at launch include Catch of the Day, EatNow, GoCatch, Kogan.com, Menulog, OzSale, Rewardle, and The Iconic.

• While you wait for Android Pay, why not check out our Apple Pay review

As Apple Pay and other mobile payments services grow, these guys from Sweden have taken it one step further and just made the first ever payment via the human body.

The world's first ever bio-payment was done with the xNT implant inside a man's hand and it has used the NFC chip to trade Bitcoins between two different accounts.

Patric Lanhed is the biohacker who used his implant to send money from one Bitcoin account to another by just using the top of his hand.

Lanhed told techradar, "We want to do something with the chip implant that actually mattered to people. This is a great way of using this kind of tech."

Handy payment solutions

"What we're really missing right now is the payment option – we think this could lead to something good."

Patric has founded a biohacking organisation called Bio Pay Dev with friends Hektor Wallin and Juanjo Tara. Based in Sweden, the team aim of to develop implant payment technology to help it into the mainstream.

Patric was implanted back in the spring, but Juanjo also had the implant on Monday this week after seeing the success Patric has had. Hector has plans to get his installed very soon.

Juanjo said, "It took ten seconds – I didn't feel any pain. I thought it'd be more painful. After a couple of days I had a swelling in my hand. I know it's there but I can't feel it, there's no pain or weird sensation."

Lanhed estimates there are now over 1,000 Swedish people who are implanted as opposed to 200 earlier in the year and the technology is growing faster than ever.

"Two years from now..."

On November 3, the Bio Pay Dev team attended a software conference in Malmö, Sweden called Oredev. All 1,500 attendees were offered the opportunity to get the implant for free.

Wallin said, "This type of technology needs to be adopted by the mainstream. Right now, people go "what are you crazy" because it's impossible for them to think they'd do it themselves.

"It will come to a point where they accept it. When we reach that point more and more people will get the tech."

Security is another big issue and it's understandable why some people would be worried about "getting their upgrade" when it involves inserting a new kind of technology into your body.

Tara assures us it's all fine though. "People think there are risks with this kind of tech but you can't read it from a few kilometers away.

"The fact is the chips are passive – they're not active, they're not sending out stuff. The important thing for people to understand is the data on the chip is secure."

Lanhed said, "Maybe two years from now we'll have the actual digital solution for payments on the market.

"It would be really cool to get a credit card or PayPal on board because that's more accessible than Bitcoin."

Biohack plan to make this technology open source as well so people can play around with it themselves and add in new features.

For now it's just the Bio Pay Dev team working on the tech. The first live bio-payment was successfully carried out at the Oredev conference in Malmö yesterday.

But there's still a lot of work to do before we'll be using this instead of a credit card, or even Apple Pay.

You can watch the video of the first-ever bio-payment down below.

• Why is Bitcoin surging massively right now?

Despite Australia's advanced contactless payments ecosystem, we're still waiting for Apple Pay to officially launch around the country.

While indications point to a profit sharing dispute with the banks as the main hold up, some eagle-eyed Apple Maps users are hoping that we're about to see a shift in strategy from the tech giant.

First spotted by the Apple Community forum AppleTalk Australia over the weekend, the business listings for certain Coles and Woolworths stores around the country on Apple Maps were updated to show the Apple Pay icon.

In markets where Apple Pay has officially launched, that same icon is used to indicate stores that you can pay with your iPhone or Apple Watch.

Pay yesterday, free tomorrow

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this development is that only certain Coles and Woolworths stores showed the icon.

However, it appears that the references to Apple Pay have since been removed from those same business listings.

In any case, we've got our fingers crossed that these listings were the scouts of the impending Apple Pay invasion into Australia, and not just a glitch in the system.

With iOS 9, Apple's Passbook app has been renamed Wallet and can now contain loyalty cards and passes in addition to any credit and debit cards you've set up with Apple Pay. Having all your stuff in one place makes finding and using it a snap, especially since Wallet can be accessed directly from the iPhone's Lock Screen. We'll tell you how to ensure this feature is enabled, and how to use it.

Setting up Wallet for use from the Lock Screen

1. Open the Settings app
2. Select "Wallet & Apple Pay"
3. Toggle on "Double-click Home Button"

With this feature activated, Wallet cards and passes will be available from the Lock Screen using the instructions below.

Using Wallet from Lock Screen

To access Wallet cards and passes from the Lock Screen, just perform this single, simple step:

• With your iPhone sleeping (or turned on, but not unlocked), double-click the Home button.

How easy was that? When you activate Wallet on the Lock Screen, your default Apple Pay card will display, ready for action. (Tap another card or pass to use it instead.)

Now all you need is a compatible NFC reader and your fingerprint to authorize the purchase.

• Like this? Check out our collection of guides on how to use iOS 9

For decades, economists have been talking about 'cashless societies' - where all transactions are performed digitally. No country in the world has yet made that a reality, but a few are getting close, and the forerunner is Sweden.

Industrial technologists at Stockholm's KTH Royal Institute of Technology have just published a study that shows how fast cash is disappearing in Sweden. "Our use of cash is small, and it's decreasing rapidly," says Niklas Arvidsson, an author of the study.

Arvidsson's team calculated that there are just 80 billion Swedish crowns (about €8 bn) in circulation in the country's wallets and cash registers - down from 106 billion just six years beforehand. "And out of that amount, only somewhere between 40 and 60 percent is actually in regular circulation," he says.

Walking the streets of Sweden's second city, Gothenburg, it's almost impossible to find a shop that doesn't accept bank cards for payment, and most locals tend to carry no coins or notes on their person. Many also make use of an app called Swish, a collaboration between Swedish and Danish banks that permits fast, simple money transfers on smartphones.

Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing

Banks are also going down the same path - several branches have opened that won't accept cash. "At the offices which do handle banknotes and coins, the customer must explain where the cash comes from, according to the regulations aimed at money laundering and terrorist financing," says Arvidsson. Any suspicious cash transactions are reported to the police.

But there is concern, noted in the report, about those being left behind by the transition. Homeless people and undocumented immigrants, as well as the elderly, can struggle to access digital services through computers and smartphones. In a cashless society, vulnerable sectors of society will be increasingly reliant on Sweden's generous social security system.

Also, Arvidsson says it may be difficult to replicate Sweden's success internationally. "Swish is a brilliant idea, but to introduce it internationally is a challenge, not least because it takes a long time to change other countries' banking systems from scratch," he said. "But it is not impossible that a Swish-based banking revolution can also occur abroad."

• Meet the baby that was 3D printed before it was born

Image credit: Duncan Geere // CC BY-SA 4.0

Android Pay, Google’s go at NFC-powered mobile payments, is beginning its launch today. The arrival of Android Pay gives Android smartphone owners the option to check out in line faster, and potentially, more secure than ever with contactless payments at over one million locations around the US.

If you own an Android phone equipped with NFC capabilities and is running KitKat 4.4, you’ll be able to access the Android Pay app through Google Pay in the next few days. However, if you’re a current Google Wallet user, you’ll enjoy immediate access to the new contactless payment system through an app update.

The service, which was first teased at this year’s MWC conference in Barcelona, then fully unveiled at this year’s Google IO developer conference, works similarly to Apple Pay. Both share the common goal of slimming down your wallet by eliminating the need to bring your credit and debit cards with you when you head to the store. When you pay for something using Android Pay, your card’s number is cloaked by a tokenization process that Google claims to be the industry standard.

At the time of writing, Google didn’t highlight its plans for a global rollout of the new payment system. While it’s disappointing news for readers outside of the US, it’s likely that Android Pay will only remain exclusive until all the bugs have been fixed. For some context on how long that might take, it took Apple Pay nearly 9 months to make the jump across the pond to the UK. Hopefully, it won’t take Google so long.

• Want to learn more about NFC payments? Here’s everything you should know

Whether it's because your device has been stolen, you want to get rid of an unused card, or you have some other reason to deactivate an Apple Pay card, iCloud can help you. Apple Pay works with iPhone 6/6 Plus, some iPad models, and Apple Watch to provide easy and convenient payment options when out and about or ordering online through mobile apps, and it's impressively secure. Even so, there are times when you might need to remove those cards, even when your device isn't nearby (such as if you've lost it). Here's how to do it.

How to view Apple Pay cards

To view the cards registered on your Apple Pay-compatible devices, perform these steps:

1. Open iCloud.com in any web browser.

2. Navigate to Settings.

3. Select the device that contains Apple Pay under the "My Devices" section of the Settings page (your registered devices that have Apple Pay enabled have the Apple Pay logo beside the device type).

4. In the window that appears, the "Apple Pay" section will list the last four digits of each card registered on that device.

How to remove Apple Pay cards

To remotely remove your cards from Apple Pay, follow the above steps to see which cards are registered to your Apple Devices, then simply click the "Remove" or "Remove All" buttons underneath the "Apple Pay" section. You'll be prompted to verify you wish to continue doing this. Once you confirm your intentions, iCloud will send the signal to the device to remove those cards. The next time the device connects to the Internet, it will see your intention, and will properly remove those cards from the device.

Of course, if you have your iOS device handy and want to remove the card from Apple Pay directly, simply open passbook, tap on the card you want to get rid of, tap on the "i" info button, then scroll to the bottom of the page and tap Remove Card.

Wearables and self-driving cars might not be the only stars of Google I/O 2015, the May conference where the search company may launch a new mobile payment service called "Android Pay."

With Google Wallet losing ground thanks to the rise of Apple Pay, Google will attempt to revive the platform by introducing Android Pay, reports Ars Technica.

• Smart TV in a stick, Chromecast is brilliant

Unlike Apple Pay and Google Wallet, though, Android Pay won't be limited to a single official app, but an API that developers can use to add one-tap payment features to their own apps, the site's source said.

It will reportedly let developers take advantage of mobile devices' NFC capabilities through Android's Host Card Emulation (HCE) feature, enabling users to make purchases online and in retail stores using third-party apps.

Coexistence

Google Wallet will continue to exist separately from Android Pay, but it will be easy for users to connect their Wallet accounts to apps that use Android Pay, the source said.

However, the Google Wallet connection won't be required - that is, you won't need a Wallet account to use Android Pay apps.

It's unclear how this is all connected with Google's acquisition of intellectual property and other tech from mobile payment coalition SoftCard, which was revealed just two days ago - but there can be little doubt that it is connected in some way.

Whatever it is, it seems we'll know more by the end of May.

• Sony's PS4 keeps getting better

Tired of feeling like second-class citizens next to Apple Pay, contactless mobile payment pioneers Google Wallet and Softcard have teamed up with three of the nation's largest wireless carriers.

The Google Commerce Blog today announced plans to ramp up adoption of Google Wallet, the near-field communication (NFC) based mobile payment technology first introduced in 2011.

Rather than attempt to compete with carrier-backed rival Softcard against the Apple Pay behemoth, Google has chosen to partner with the service formerly known as ISIS Mobile Wallet.

A joint venture between US carriers AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless, Softcard will relinquish "some exciting technology and intellectual property" to Google Wallet, which will soon come preinstalled on Android 4.4 KitKat or higher smartphones sold by the three carriers.

Strength in numbers

Having Google Wallet already installed on new Android handsets could presumably go a long way toward fending off Apple Pay, which is baked right into iOS 8.1 on Touch ID-enabled iPhone 5S, iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus smartphones, as well as the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3.

The move also gives Google Wallet a whiff of legitimacy, given the service has a somewhat checkered history with US carriers (we're looking at you, Verizon) who favored their own competing Softcard technology.

The announcement specifically singles out the "tap and pay functionality" of Google Wallet will be a big part of the mix when AT&T, T-Mobile US and Verizon begin offering the app preinstalled on Android devices later this year.

In the wake of Apple Pay's launch last fall, Google Wallet and Softcard also faced setbacks as major US retailers such as CVS and Rite Aid blocked all three tap-and-pay services from stores in favor of a fourth competitor known as CurrentC, which has yet to hit the market.

• Get the latest on the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S6 right here!

The Apple Store has started accepting orders through Paypal in the US and UK, offering another way to get hold of a new iPhone 6 or MacBook Pro.

As well as being able to buy Apple gadgets outright through Paypal, you can pay in monthly instalments, with the same zero interest deal on offer for those not using PayPal.

PayPal payments aren't yet available through the Apple Store app, but at the moment it's not clear whether that's simply down to it not having been updated yet.

PayPal vs Apple Pay

This news is good for those who like selling their old tat on eBay, especially when paying using one of Apple's 6/12/18 month plans.

The introduction of PayPal payments is perhaps a little surprising, as Apple is currently in the process of rolling out its own alternative, Apple Pay.

Apple Pay was announced alongside the iPhone 6, and can be used in the US to pay for goods with the latest iPhones or the upcoming Apple Watch, due in early 2015.

In a similar vein, PayPal expanded its high street payment offerings in 2014, partnering up with many restaurants in particular to offer a new way to pay for your grub.

Is there a cease-fire between Apple Pay and PayPal at present? It seems so, although that could all change once Apple Pay is rolled-out worldwide later in 2015.

via Re/Code

Apple Pay seems like a promising mobile payments method for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus users, but it's nothing if it lacks support from retailers.

Some, including Rite Aid, CVS and Walmart, have begun shunning Apple Pay, but only Walmart has provided an explanation - and it's exactly what we suspected.

The massive retailer told Business Insider that it's holding out for the solution in works at the Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), an alliance of retailers making its own payment service called CurrentC.

"MCX member merchants already collectively serve a majority of Americans every day," the retailer's statement reads. "MCX's members believe merchants are in the best position to provide a mobile solution because of their deep insights into their customers' shopping and buying experiences."

Cue incredulity

This quote is the real kicker, though: "Ultimately, what matters is that consumers have a payment option that is widely accepted, secure and developed with their best interests in mind," reads the retailer's stance. Because that definitely doesn't describe Apple Pay?

Apple, meanwhile, remains obstinately positive in the way only a company with Apple's overwhelming ubiquity can.

"The feedback we are getting from customers and retailers about Apple Pay is overwhelmingly positive and enthusiastic," the company told Business Insider. "We are working to get as many merchants as possible to support this convenient, secure and private payment option for consumers. Many retailers have already seen the benefits and are delighting their customers at over 220,000 locations."

Hopefully that number doesn't dwindle any more than it already has.

• So, what is NFC?

Apple, once again, dominated technology news last month with its latest product announcement. With the speculation before each announcement, and the analysis afterwards, Apple ensures that each new product and development is announced to the world over a period of days.

No stranger to setting the standard, this time Apple has sent out a challenge to the payments industry. Apple Pay is well-placed to succeed, perhaps uniquely so. Its launch combines new technologies, a strong and loyal customer base and has attracted merchants, all required components in driving the success of a new payments vehicle.

This sector, already undergoing massive change as internet and mobile payments take hold and new providers enter the market, will be revolutionised if Apple's mobile wallet grabs the public's attention.

• Check out everything businesses need to know about Apple Pay on our sister website, ITProPortal.com

Security concerns have been one of the key barriers to early mobile payment technology adoption, with recent research from Fujitsu showing that more than half of IT leaders believe that security is a significant barrier to deploying a successful mobile banking strategy.

Apple wants its smartphone to also be a wallet, and has anticipated privacy and security fears and tried to ensure that its solution addresses each; each time a payment is made a one-off payment number and security code is generated and no card details are stored. The 'Find My iPhone' app means that payments can be blocked on a lost device.

Apple's decision to go for NFC – a technology that up until now has struggled to clearly stamp its mark on the payments industry - is a bold one. While Apple's choice is undoubtedly a boost for the NFC solution, its deployment of other technologies will be equally helpful to other sectors.

For example, the iPhone 6, with its thumb-print scanner, is launched shortly after Barclays has announced that it will deploy finger-scanners for business and personal customers alike. Such developments will act as a catalyst for other biometric solutions, thereby raising the profile and appeal of such solutions as customers seek ways of ensuring the security of transactions.

Of course, part of the appeal to merchants will be the aggressive pricing that Apple is reportedly offering. The Financial Times has reported that Apple will charge just 15 cents on every $100 transaction, significantly lower than the established levels of interchange fee charged by banks and card providers.

Those financial institutions which have elected to join the Apple solution are, presumably, expecting to make up the difference by attracting transactions that were previously made by other payment mechanisms, while anticipating that the move helps ensure that their own product remain relevant in a world that is increasingly moving to digital.

It's easy to speculate on what the future may hold for mobile payments, but one thing is certain; Apple Pay offers the potential to redefine the payments industry. It'll be fascinating to see if it fulfils its potential.

• Anthony Duffy is Director, Retail Banking for Fujitsu UK & Ireland

The Apple Pay function, tying Touch ID with mobile payments, was perhaps the most important announcement to come from the 9/9 event, and one that signifies the company's first legitimate claim to consumer identity.

The move pits Apple not just against payment providers such as PayPal, but against companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon as an identity provider.

Combining Apple Pay with Passbook effectively digitises a user's entire wallet, and with that their identity as a consumer. It's essentially putting your 'identity' into one 'pocketable' device.

This includes anything ranging from your credit or debit card, Tesco Clubcard, and student ID card, to your flight boarding pass, hotel room key, and restaurant voucher. Developments in the world of the Internet of Things will even enable you to unlock your car via NFC-enabled devices in the not-so-distant future – you can already do it with your home.

• Check out everything businesses need to know about Apple Pay on our sister website, ITProPortal.com

While other identity providers have offered businesses a way to get users to register and log into their sites for years, Apple has the scale to compete as a major player in consumer identity from the outset. What's more, it will be joining the party armed with millions of iPhone users and over 200 million credit cards on file.

NFC payments have so far failed to take off, but Apple Pay is likely to turn the tables on a so-far sluggish take-up. A number of other companies have tried to apply the technology to payments before and have failed because they couldn't make the user experience seamless enough, regardless of merchant adoption. What's significant about Apple Pay, however, is that Apple may have found the mobile payments holy grail by tying identity, credit cards, Touch ID, and NFC together.

Interface and user experience will be crucial for wide adoption by consumers, but if there's one company that understands how to do this, it's Apple. With its huge customer base, and backing from major US banks, retailers and online companies that are already planning to accept Apple Pay, Apple is perhaps the only company that can make NFC payments useful and popular.

Apple is not alone in recognising the importance of payments in the race to own consumer identity however. Facebook, for example, which allows for social login – a feature that permits users to sign into their favourite websites using their social media profiles rather than entering their personal data – applied to the European Union earlier this year for a license for money transfer capabilities. This is part of what is believed to be Facebook's plan to incorporate payments into its messaging platforms. Facebook also owns WhatsApp, which has a huge international subscriber base – especially in the developing world.

Whilst Apple is yet to confirm whether or not it will take a commission or charge a fee for its role in the payment process; even with an intermediary charge it is not expected to generate substantial profit from the new feature. Instead, Apple Pay will seek to draw users further into the Apple eco-system. Apple Pay, combined with Passbooks and HomeKit really will make your iPhone 6 the key to your digital life.

• Patrick Salyer is the CEO of Gigya, a consumer identity management platform.

Few brands can make the headlines for each of their new launches and Apple is surely one of them. The much anticipated launch of the iPhone 6 has yet again created a buzz that still hasn't subsided.

One of the most anticipated features of Apple's new iPhone is Apple Pay, which marks the tech giant's first go at the mobile payment technology. But when the smoke following the launch settles will Apple Pay succeed in powering Apple's break into the final frontier of e-Commerce?

With the number of mobile payment users set to increase to 450 million by 2017 and the value of purchases in the mobile payments market estimated to reach $700 billion (about £432 billion, AU$803 billion) in 2018, it's easy to understand why Apple is entering the mobile payments market.

This market is already dominated by players from a broad range of industries, from retail outlets to mobile manufacturers, and from financial services to social media companies that offer their own mobile payment solutions, often in the form of the "new great payments app".

• Check out everything businesses need to know about Apple Pay on our sister website, ITProPortal.com

But where does Apple stand in this fiercely competitive market? Despite the noise surrounding it, Apple Pay runs the risk of becoming yet another option to be added to the long list of payment systems. Apple Pay is only available on the brands' latest models, which realistically refers to a limited share of the global smartphone market.

The size of the audience is limited even further by the fact that users can only use credit and debit cards, issued by Apple's partners, currently representing no more than five card issuers with another five issuers to follow - mainly from the USA.

At the same time, the decision to limit Apple Pay's capabilities to Near Field Communication (NFC) technology also drastically limits its scope to the retailers that have installed the technology. The fact that research shows that just 22 per cent of UK adults were aware of NFC payment technology in 2013 does not paint the best picture for retailers considering its adoption, especially as the cost of installing and maintaining NFC systems can be quite high.

Technology aside, Apple Pay offers no more than yet another payment method, allowing users to pay with cards issued by Apple's partners at designated POS points where NFC has been deployed. But in order to rise from the crowd, payment systems need to provide a real solution to users in the fragmented retail space.

There is no doubt that the vast array of options that both consumers and retailers have literally at the fingertips is empowering them. But at the same time, choosing the solution that is best suited for them can be overwhelming.

In an overcomplicated and confusing mobile payment landscape, users need a simple, reliable and user-friendly solution that can meet their needs with no added cost, and without cramming their smartphones with individual payment apps that can only be used for specific retailers. This can only happen via a universal app that works anywhere.

Similarly, retailers choose their mobile payment service, without however any assurance that the solution will be worth the investment. Without a clear and universal choice that can be seamlessly incorporated into their current infrastructure, how can they be sure they have picked a VHS and not a Betamax?

To provide a solution to these problems, solutions need to be universal, one that gives users the power to not only pay, but complete their entire sales process, anytime, anywhere as quickly as possible.

Being technology agnostic is also a crucial factor: QR codes, java script, social media, iBeacons, near field communication (NFC) and embedded audio tags can be used to enable instant purchasing both in-store and on the move.

Mobile payments promise a host of opportunities for both consumers and retailers alike. But to be truly ground-breaking these technologies should correspond to real user needs and expectations.

• Dan Wagner is the CEO and founder of Powa Technologies

In case iOS 8 users were wondering where Apple Pay was on their brand new iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus, it looks to be coming with iOS 8.1.

Hamza Sood, a developer with access to the iOS 8.1 beta, tweeted a screenshot revealing a new section of settings allowing users to fill in their pertinent billing information.

This includes credit or debit card numbers, addresses, phone number and email - all info that points to Apple's tap-based payment system.

In the another screenshot you can also see Apple Pay's privacy policy, which adds further evidence iOS 8.1 will include the NFC-powered payment method.

Tablet-sized wallets

Sood also claimed to have discovered another string of code revealing the iPad will get Touch ID and allow users to make purchases though apps with Apple Pay.

However, the United Kingdom-based programmer also clarified the code makes no mention of NFC. So users might not be bopping credit card machines with the iPad Air 2 or iPad mini 3 in the near future.

Apple Pay is slated to launch in the coming month. Meanwhile, the Cupertino is also expected to hold yet another press event where it will likely unveil the new iPads and officially launch OS X Yosemite.

Like a perfect storm of tech announcements, it seems very likely Apple will unveil its next line of tablets running the full commercial build of iOS 8.1.

• What of Apple Pay on the Apple Watch?

Nearly two weeks ago at an event in California, Apple showed off the latest iterations of its smartphone range, the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 plus, alongside the widely expected introduction of the company's first foray into the wearable tech market, the Apple Watch.

Amongst all of this excitement, however, many commentators feel that the real game-changing announcement could be that of Apple Pay, a new feature which will enable iPhone users to retain financial information on their phones in order to make in-store purchases. This feature isn't expected to be rolled out in the UK until 2015.

• Check out everything businesses need to know about Apple Pay on our sister website, ITProPortal.com

Apple Pay - the payment gatekeeper?

Contactless payments are already firmly in the mainstream, with all card operators now pushing contactless chip-and-pin cards. Mobile payment is also in use, with many other device manufacturers utilising NFC payments. This technology has been around for a while though, and as of yet has not taken off. This is mainly because it is inconvenient and costly to implement at the point of sale, and perhaps perceived as less secure by the customer.

Although other device manufacturers are utilising NFC, Apple has always had a knack of bringing previously unknown technologies into the mainstream, so the tech giant will be hoping that now it has endorsed NFC, it'll become the payment gatekeeper.

• Check out our review of Apple Pay

The new Apple Pay feature has been receiving support from the payment industry, although it remains to be seen how and if it will be widely adopted by users. Having said that, positioning their device as a payment/purchases gateway, and therefore gatekeeper, is a very smart move by Apple, and is similar to how they were able to make iTunes and the iPod such a successful pairing in the music industry.

We are very interested to see whether Apple will continue to apply a "walled garden" model. Which card issuers will be accepted into Apple Pay and which won't? What criteria will be applied to make the selection?

It will also be interesting to see what the implications for merchants will be in terms of costs and risks of fraud and theft, as well as how / if these will be passed to the customers. It could be some time until we discover if Apple Pay is utilised in the mainstream payments market, but we look forward to seeing how it compares to existing competition in the market.

Apple Pay - security heaven or security burden?

When it comes to security considerations, we believe that any errors in the implementation of Apple Pay, especially with regards to the contactless feature, will surface pretty quickly. Furthermore, we expect 'evil maid' attacks, whereby the attacker can physically target a device multiple times, and 'replay' attacks against the fingerprint sensor to become a real threat in the near future.

Whether Apple Pay is more secure than traditional methods of payment also remains to be seen. Intuitively speaking, the more complex the solution, the larger the so-called 'attack surface.' There will be a biometric sensor, a secure data store and a secure means of communication, and they will all have to work together flawlessly to keep any attacks at bay.

If this high-profile launch does not go to plan, either due to lack of security – or lack of interest, it could set the payments industry back several years. Moreover, if, as Apple seems to suggest, customers will store credit card information tied to their various accounts within the iPhone 6, that device has just become a very tempting target for any criminal.

Catalin Cosoi is Chief Security Strategist at security firm, Bitdefender.

One of the most intriguing announcements at Apple's latest launch event last week was the introduction of Apple Pay.

A contactless payment technology built into the iPhone 6 and the new Apple Watch, it allows you to tap and pay for your day-to-day purchases without hunting through your credit cards, entering PINs or signing bits of paper.

Now, mobile payments has been talked about for years and has struggled to take off but, but with Apple Pay the stars may have finally aligned to deliver a user experience that is compelling.

• Check out everything businesses need to know about Apple Pay on our sister website, ITProPortal.com

Needless to say, if Apple Pay does take off, it will be a juicy target for attackers, but Apple looks to have taken sensible measures to ensure it is as secure as possible. Here are my 4 reasons for why Apple Pay will be secure:

There's not very much for the attacker to steal

Apple Pay, like all mobile payments solutions, introduces a new points of attack, the handset itself. That's always been a potentially big issue since phones with their numerous apps are notoriously hard to secure. To reduce these added risks, Apple have taken a number of steps.

Firstly, the phone employs a tamper-resistant hardened security chip, called a Secure Element, to protect the secret codes used to make payments. This guards against physical attacks and malware on the phone and although no security measure is perfect the Secure Element is a big improvement.

But, perhaps the most important innovation is that the codes on the phone are not actual credit card number so even if they are stolen or the phone is lost there is no need to cancel your cards.

Apple has worked with the credit card companies like Visa, MasterCard and American Express to ensure that only temporary 'tokens' are stored on the phone.

These tokens are used in transactions to represent a user's account but are useless to an attacker and can be deleted without affecting the user's bank account or credit card.

Not only does this tokenization process reduce the risk at the phone it also protects the back-end infrastructure that communicates with the phone to set up payment accounts and approve transactions, for example the systems operated by the mobile operator and Apple themselves.

Strong biometric authentication

Another strong security measure is the integration of Apple Pay with the Touch ID biometric authentication capability of the iPhone. If an attacker can't steal the card information from the then the next best thing is to steal the phone and misuse it until it gets shut down.

Touch ID has been around for a while as a way to unlock the phone now it is being used to authorize a payment off. Biometrics, in this case your fingerprint, heightens security as it is completely unique to the user and is based on your personal biological data that can't easily be stolen or replicated.

The use of biometrics does occasionally have some challenges, some fingerprints just can't be read and false positives do occur but isn't a huge improvement over passwords.

Apple isn't reinventing the wheel

Against many people's expectations, Apple has based its service Apple Pay service on a set of well proven and standardized technologies rather than forge ahead with a proprietary approach.

The maturity of the technology is good news for security and investments already made by merchants could now pay dividends.

Apple Pay works on established payment 'rails', adopting technologies such as NFC, EMV that combine with the Secure Element to communicate with standard contactless point of sales (POS) devices in stores.

The fact that banks and credit card companies will continue to play their traditional role as part of the Apple ecosystem will help to quell the arguments and allow everyone to focus on the customer.

A balance between customer experience and security

Balancing security against user experience is critical for the successful of any security venture and is even more critical for mobile payments.

Tim Cook argued that firms in the mobile payments sector have focused too heavily on their own interests (i.e. monetisation) for years and not paid enough heed to customer experience.

It's vital that everyone views mobile payments, or mobile commerce as it should be called, as a better way to buy more things and not simply another way to buy the same things with just using a different technology.

If poorly thought out security gets in the way, creates friction, the mobile model will never take off. Apple has clearly taken this idea on-board, and have been working hard on creating a product that is customer orientated without compromising security.

Richard Moulds is Vice President of Strategy at Thales e-Security.

Apple Pay is Apple's first foray into payments. Available on the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch, Apple Pay will give users the ability to pay for things using their phone or smartwatch either in stores, using NFC terminals, or online through certain Apple Pay enabled applications. Apple's decision to enter payments will impact consumers, merchants and – of course – Apple's own business.

For consumers the news seems pretty straightforward; we all like choice and so a new way to pay that is fast and convenient is going to be good news, especially if it means speed at the checkout, and not always needing to carry a wallet or card to pay at a physical store.

Consumer adoption of Apple Pay, however, will be impacted by security and tokenization, which are key in ensuring confidence. Credit cards will be stored in Passbook. Traditional card account information will not be stored or used in Apple Pay, as tokens will be used instead.

• Check out everything businesses need to know about Apple Pay on our sister website, ITProPortal.com

A distinct device token is assigned, encrypted and stored in a dedicated chip in the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch. Then when a transaction occurs, a dynamic security code is generated for that transaction.

From a merchant perspective, the payments market has been inundated with new wallets and technologies in recent years. With no clear winner among consumers, many merchants have found it difficult to decide what payment offerings to invest in, and when.

• Check out our hands on review of the Apple Pay

This could change, however, as Apple has worked cooperatively with the major players in the payments ecosystem such as Visa, MasterCard and the card issuers. In addition, China Union Pay which is the largest card issuer in the world, has already announced its support for Apple Pay.

While the technology has been available for some time, the scale at which Apple operates means that this has the potential to be a tipping point for mobile payments both in the physical and digital worlds.

Apple Pay may be launching in the US to begin with, however, it already has 220,000 stores ready to accept payments and a large number of partners signed up to accept Apple Pay; from Macy's, Toys R Us and Bloomingdales to Subway, McDonalds and Whole Foods – plus, of course, Apple's own retail stores. Other larger retailers like Walmart and BestBuy have decided not to support Apple Pay for the moment.

Based on its ease of use, hardware integration and unique form factor (the compatibility with Apple Watch), the existing installed global iTunes base and consumer excitement, I believe that Apple Pay is well positioned to gain widespread adoption.

• Check out our hands on review of the Apple Watch

Increased usage of mobile wallets should accelerate the transition from cash to electronic forms of payments. This will benefit the networks, acquirers and POS hardware providers as merchants continue to upgrade their existing hardware to become NFC-enabled.

For Apple, this certainly looks like a timely move. The company has been laying the foundation for this kind of initiative for some time. It introduced its Touch ID fingerprint sensor with its last iPhone launch and its iBeacon system of Bluetooth transmitters has now been available for about a year.

Apple is well positioned to carve itself a slice of the global mobile payments market. Gartner estimated the market to be worth $235 billion in 2013.

If Apple can succeed in this space, and offer a ubiquitous solution, it could help simplify the landscape for many merchants. Ultimately, however, Apple Pay's long-term prospects will depend on how it will continue to work with existing payment technologies and, of course, global user.

• Souheil Badran is Senior Vice President and General Manager at Digital River World Payments

With more than 200 mobile payment startups so far this year, it's obvious that mobile payments are a hot topic. But the problem with mobile payments is a perennial one: new payment types hardly ever succeed.

History is littered with failed payment approaches including Pay by Touch, Mondex, and contactless cards. But now that Apple has introduced a phone with Near Field Communication technology – NFC – and the Apple Pay wallet, we've reached the tipping point for mobile contactless payments, which will now become ubiquitous.

• Check out our hands on review of the Apple Pay

In a perfect storm of converging drivers, almost every consumer will have a mobile wallet, on both Android and Apple phones. Security issues are addressed by the fingerprint scanner and tokenisation, in which credit card account numbers are replaced with dynamic tokens that are useless if stolen.

The industry came together with a standards-based specification for security in the form of the EMVCo tokenisation scheme. Cloud-based payments eliminate the industry deadlock between mobile operators and payments companies – the battle of "show me the money" and control over the handset Secure Element.

Merchants are under the gun to upgrade their Point-of-Sale systems for EMV chip acceptance by this time next year, providing a perfect opening to include contactless readers in their upgrade plans. So, the open question is, will consumers want to use it?

As I wrote earlier this year in "Achieving the Elusive 10X Factor in Payments Innovation," three Es are vital to success of payments innovation, and Apple Pay addresses all three:

1. Easing checkout
2. Eliminating friction
3. Enabling marketplace.

Emblematic of Apple's reputation for usability and design, the payment solution couldn't be easier. Combining Touch ID and NFC, there is no need to fumble with PINs or depend on unreliable bar code scanning.

In-app purchasing with Touch to Pay eliminates typing in card numbers on a tiny screen. Embedding Apple Pay into apps like OpenTable and Uber underscores trust in marketplaces and triggers a payment in the context of a dining or taxi experience. Finally, Apple does not create commercial friction in the marketplace by trying to monetise transaction data.

Banks featured at launch comprise nearly two-thirds of all U.S. credit card accounts. These banks will be able to get their payment cards into mobile wallets without having to invest in creating their own mobile wallets.

Because of the biometric authentication provided by Touch ID, the issuers will have more assurance that the consumer is who he claims to be, resulting in less fraud. What remains is dramatic expansion of the merchant acceptance network.

• Check out everything businesses need to know about Apple Pay on our sister website, ITProPortal.com

Today, less than twenty per cent of merchant Point-of-Sale terminals are enabled to accept contactless payments. As charter acceptance pioneers, Bloomingdales, Disney, Duane Reade, Macy's, McDonalds, Staples, Subway, Walgreens, Whole Foods, and Apple retail stores will set the pace, and the hype and excitement around Apple Pay will drive consumer demand, paving the way for more merchants to install the contactless readers.

NFC promises to open up whole new world of payments-related innovation including location based services, couponing, loyalty and marketing, which will provide further incentive for consumers to use the mobile wallet. Eventually, NFC and mobile technology will eliminate plastic cards, make payments more secure, and make people's everyday lives easier.

• Deborah Baxley heads Capgemini's Global Cards and Payments Consulting practice. She is an officer on the Smart Card Alliance Payments and NFC Councils, co-founder/officer of NYPAY networking group, and Certified Smart Card Industry Professional.

Apple has finally jumped on the NFC train with the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch, but sadly you'll only be able to use it with Apple Pay, at least for the time being.

NFC is used for all sorts of things, from contactless payments to easy pairing of devices - it can even be used to unlock doors - but it's only the contactless payments bit that you'll get from Apple. That means you won't be able to use it for contactless PayPal payments, for example.

Or at least that's according to Cult of Mac, which claims to have got confirmation from an Apple spokesperson.

Things could change

It's not all bad news though, as we're likely to see Apple Pay supported in a lot of places, especially as the company has already partnered with Visa, MasterCard and American Express, and Apple is also going to allow developers to integrate Apple Pay into their apps.

It's also possible that it might expand the functions of its NFC chip in future, much like it's now doing with Touch ID, but that's likely to be at least a year away. For now we're stuck with just Apple Pay, rather than the full features of NFC.

• Want to see what we think of Apple Pay?

In true form, Apple didn't announce anything wholly original during its keynote. What Apple does best is design it better and deploy it to the market in a way that brings it forward into the public consciousness.

NFC technology isn't new and Apple is late to the table with payments. Google Wallet has been securely storing credit cards, debit cards, loyalty cards and offers for a while and Facebook is also close to acquiring a banking license in Europe .

But so far, NFC technology has failed to take off in the US, and though its popularity scores better in some parts of Asia and Europe, it's about the application, not the tech itself. Apple Pay will force innovation from the financial establishment, encourage fintech innovators, motivate retailers and drive consumer awareness.

• Check out everything businesses need to know about Apple Pay on our sister website, ITProPortal.com

The old guard are now paying attention

If we are moving to a society of cashless payments, as we go around our daily lives with a phone or device on us at all times, was this a revolutionary moment? Perhaps not, but it was an important gear-change.

This is a sector in dire need of innovation. Tim Cook's "entirely new payment process" laid bare the vulnerability of magnetic strips printed numbers on credit and debit cards, and there was a sense of mockery at the incumbents reliance on the physical, especially in the US, which is yet to adopt chip and PIN unlike Europe.

If the financial sector may once have sniffed at the idea that Apple could be threat to their businesses, they're certainly paying attention now.

The big banks and payments companies' senior executives were all over yesterday's event, and the biggest US banks are part of the Apple Pay service, representing 83% of total US payment volume. The service may be US-only for now, but Apple will be focused on the global roll-out.

A tipping point in retail

An app store with no apps makes no sense, and it took the iPhone to move the smartphone market towards a de-facto standard that others followed. I expect payments, and Apple Watch, to do the same for NFC.

Apple announced some retail partners – including Macy's and McDonald's – but other major retailers were notable for their absence. Some have already invested in their own mobile payments platforms, such as Walmart and Target in the US, in answer to Google's Wallet. From a practical perspective, there will have to be infrastructure changes with retailers to facilitate changes at purchase point, which just aren't there in the market right now.

But now that Apple is here, consumer awareness will build, retailers will look at integration, and software developers will looking to capitalise in between.

The introduction of Apple Pay shows how emerging technologies, such as developments in mobile payments and the introduction of wearables, will disrupt the financial services market.

Don't underestimate the importance of consumer trust

Trust in financial services companies, banks in particular, is low. People are tired of low value products and poor customer service. They are looking for a better offer from a brand that they trust - and innovative tech brands and have a captive audience.

Millennials are more open to the idea of banking with a company that isn't a bank - they want instant, secure purchasing, with as few interactions as possible. A company like Apple carries with it a level of trust with this generation that expects.

While this presents a challenge, banks should see Apple's foray into the payments space as an opportunity. They need to seize the moment and use Apple Pay as a way of perhaps understanding consumer spending habits, and using this knowledge to better help their customers.

The financial sector can remain relevant, and re-cover lost ground by integrating new technologies to offer services that helps consumer everyday lives.

It will be interesting to see the impact of the iCloud celebrity photo leak scandal, and its impact on trust in Apple's brand.

This is new territory for them, and thus far they've escaped the data furore that has hit Facebook and Google in recent years. Its trust will go so far as its tech remains trustworthy, hence the re-assurances that credit card numbers wouldn't be stored and data wouldn't be passed on to other parties.

Whether the existing banks, fintech innovators, or data companies will win out remains to be seen.

• Peter founded The BIO Agency in 2006, a pure-play digital strategic and creative agency focusing on innovation and delivering it. With 100 people it has grown to become one of the UK's most successful independent digital companies.

Web giant Amazon is about to release a mobile-based credit card reader to rival the likes of Square, according to reports on Sunday.

9to5Mac has obtained a copy of a recent Staples (an American office supplies store) inventory, that claims Amazon is planning to launch a device known as the 'Amazon Card Reader' next month.

The internal document says the reader will cost $9.99 (around £5.90, AU$10.60), but adds Staples staff are to hold off on making stock available until August 12.

For those keeping score at home, this isn't the first time such a rumour has manifested itself. Earlier this year the Wall Street Journal reported Amazon was working on a point-of-sale system.

Hip to be Square

Currently Square, founded and operated by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, dominates the mobile card reader market in the United States, although the PayPal Here rival is also on the scene.

Square provides a small, square (hence the name) reader to vendors, who can plug them into a smartphone's 3.5mm headphone jack in order to take credit card payments via an accompanying app.

Square takes a small cut of the transaction, but offers a far more cost effective solution for small businesses who don't wish to invest in credit card machines or pay inflated fees associated with them.

However, all is far from rosy in the Square garden after it announced losses of $100m earlier this year. Could Amazon capitalise on its perceived weakness?

Amazon is yet to comment on the reports, but with August 12 just around the corner, it won't be long until we find out for sure.

• Amazon Fire Phone review round-up

Via The Verge

PayPal has launched Beacon, which will let you pay for things without having to pull out your wallet or your smartphone.

PayPal released a new app last week, which further integrated digital wallet transactions in bricks-and-mortar settings by letting customers check-in, order and pay for things straight from their mobile phones at participating stores.

PayPal's Beacon takes this technology further in the form of a low-energy USB Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) communicator that merchants can install into their system, allowing customers to automatically check-in.

"PayPal Beacon opens the door to a fundamentally different way to use technology to make shopping more valuable and more personal for consumers and retailers," said David Marcus, president of PayPal.

So while swiping and tapping cards may have only recently become a norm for most, PayPal is pushing for more – or less, so to speak.

"We challenged ourselves to find a better experience than swiping a credit card. We figured the only better way to pay would be to do nothing," he said.

"Just walk in a store, and, like magic, when you're ready to pay, money is transferred securely. No wallet. No card. Nothing to do. Not even touching your phone."

Hands-free payment

According to PayPal, on the merchants end, Beacon is a simple add-on USB to any Point-of-Sale systems that are compatible with PayPal.

Users will have the option to set which stores they automatically get checked into (like your usual morning coffee shop), which ones will have automatic payments, and which will require approval for payments.

PayPal also assures us that customer's won't be tracked, and unless you check-in, no information will be passed onto PayPal or the merchant.

While all this hands-free shopping sounds very exciting, the Beacon device won't be ready for merchants until next year.

And of course, there may also be hiccups with wrongful charges or customers walking away without paying, but we'd assume all these will be ironed out by PayPal by next year.

• This new technology is only confirming our views on the death of cash.

According to my esteemed colleague Patrick Goss, NFC is the killer app for the smart watch. I love his vision of the future, which sounds rather like the lifestyle of the humans in Wall-E, but I think he's being far too optimistic with his predictions of waggly-wristed m-commerce that renders the physical wallet obsolete.

I reckon NFC is like jetpacks or flying cars: something we're constantly told is just around the corner and which never quite arrives.

• What is NFC and why is it in your phone?

I need to stress that by "NFC" I don't mean NFC technology. That's great: the NFC we use to share stuff between phones or to pair devices is just dandy.

I mean NFC payments, which is a clown show, has been a clown show for years and looks likely to remain a clown show for the foreseeable future.

Firms have been trying to crack the mobile payments market for a long time. Natwest had FastPay in 2005. Citigroup, Mastercard, Cingular and Nokia were pushing the NFC-based "Tap & Go" in 2006. In 2008 Visa had PayWave, Mastercard PayPass, American Express ExpressPay.

Google joined the party in 2011. They've all flopped. According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Google Wallet has cost over $300 million and has been downloaded fewer than 10 million times - and Google loses money on every single transaction.

The problem with payments

There are multiple problems with NFC payments and they aren't technological. First up: too many cooks.

NFC involves not just hardware and software firms but phone networks and payment service providers too, and everybody wants a slice of the mobile payment pie (Google excepted: it just wants to know what everybody's buying in shops).

That means retailers face not only the cost of upgrading to NFC-capable tills, but higher per-transaction costs too, and that is a big, big problem when high street shops are fighting for survival. If you've ever wondered why so few retailers seem keen on contactless payments, that's a big part of it.

There's also the issue of multiple competing platforms: Google Wallet, Visa's PayWave, MasterCard's Masterpass, Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile's Isis and so on, not to mention non-NFC options such as PayPal or Square. In some cases stakeholders in one platform will block rivals - for example AT&T blocks Google Wallet.

There's also the fact that some retailers haven't even embraced chip and PIN, aka EVM, yet - especially in the US. Various card issuers have announced "liability shifts" in America (after which retailers will pay the price for fraud if they don't use EVM) for dates between 2015 and 2017; the EU had the liability shift in 2005, which is why Chip and PIN is everywhere in Europe

NFC fans hope that when those retailers upgrade their point-of-sale systems in the coming years, they'll go for NFC too, but that's by no means a safe bet if it'll still cost more to accept NFC payments than to take traditional card payments.

The biggest problem of all, however, is that NFC payments aren't solving a big problem.

Other similar tech does. Electronic travel documents make travellers' lives easier, and electronic tickets beat the touts (although they also enable ticket agencies to charge £2.50 for "posting" them. Bad Ticketmaster!).

What do NFC payments do that's so much better than plastic cards? Where are the crying masses at the supermarket tills demanding freedom from the tyranny of tapping four digits? What's the advantage of waving your phone or smartwatch around to find the sweet spot instead of going tap-tap-tap-tap?

NFC's many problems are surmountable, of course, but for now it seems awfully like a solution looking for a problem. As Bob1974 brilliantly puts it on the Guardian website: "I estimate I'd be able to save about 4 seconds every week with contactless technology. But I'd lose 5 seconds deciding how I should spend those 4 seconds."

• Read all Gary Marshall's columns here.

A British student attacked the PayPal website in a hack which cost the site millions, a court has heard.

Northumberland University student Christopher Weatherhead, 22, allegedly took part in a campaign orchestrated by the Anonymous hacking collective.

The online payment site reportedly became a target of 'hacktivist' groups after it refused to process donations to online whistleblower WiikiLeaks.

Prosecutors told the court that the attack had cost PayPal £3.5 million (USD$5.5, AUD$5.3) and "caused considerable damage to its reputation and loss of trade."

Sophisticated campaign

Mr Weatherhead pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring to impair the operation of computers between August 1 2010 and January 22 2011.

Southwark Crown Court heard that Weatherhead, along with three other individuals who had already pleaded guilty to the charge, had turned its attentions to PayPal following a campaign against opponents of internet piracy.

Sandip Patel, prosecuting, told the court: "It is the prosecution case that Christopher Weatherhead, the defendant, is a cyber attacker and that he, and others like him, waged a sophisticated and orchestrated campaign of online attacks that paralysed a series of targeted computer systems belonging to companies to which they took issue with, for whatever reason, and those attacks caused unprecedented harm.

The court also heard how over 100 PayPal employees spent three weeks cleaning up the mess following the attacks and had spent £3.5m to protect the site against future attacks.

The case continues.

Via BBC

The evolution of Google Wallet continued Thursday as Google announced plans to change the way consumers purchase goods through the mobile web.

Instead of being required to fill out lengthy order forms on a smartphone or tablet screen, Google Wallet users can now press one button to have all the busy work taken care of by the service.

Consumers with a Google Wallet account can also use the new "Buy with Google Wallet" button for one-touch ordering.

Currently, Google's research showed 97 percent of customers who attempt to buy goods through a mobile website quit before the order is complete.

By simplifying the process, Google is hoping more shoppers can get the items they want with little to no hassle.

Competition heats up

Since the program is so new, very few mobile sites have adopted the "Buy with Google Wallet" button.

1-800-Flowers.com, Rockport.com and FiveGuys.com have already implemented the new Google Wallet options into each company's respective mobile sites, and Google promises more (like Finish Line and MovieTickets.com) mobile sites will soon be compatible.

This is a pretty big step for Google Wallet, as it now provides a distinct advantage competitor services Apple Passbook and Microsoft Wallet don't yet offer.

Google also has an advantage in that its service works across a variety of platforms, whereas Microsoft Wallet is limited to Windows Phone 8 and Passbook is limited to devices running iOS 6.

With more and more consumers adopting digital wallets and payment options, it will be interesting to see how the wallet wars continue to escalate over the course of the next year.

Via Google

The Pay with Square deal between Starbucks and Square that brought the service to more than 7,000 Starbucks locations was a pretty big deal. Last week.

This week, PayPal and BitInstant responded in kind, and revealed their own respective partnerships with two major credit card companies in an effort to compete with Square's efforts.

PayPal agreed to a deal with Discover that will now make the service accepted in more than seven million locations around the world.

Likewise, BitInstant is in the final stages of negotiations with MasterCard to introduce a prepaid debit card fueled by Bitcoins that'll work anywhere that accepts MasterCard.

7 million locations with one swipe

PayPal's vice president of retail services Don Kingsborough offered his thoughts on why teaming with Discover was such an important step for the company.

"The whole industry has been looking for a landmark that says that all of this is really happening," Kingsborough said.

"This is an important deal for us, because it gets us to over seven million locations pretty seamlessly."

Though consumers can currently use PayPal in more than 3,000 retail locations for stores like Home Depot and Abercrombie & Fitch, the partnership with Discover could drastically alter the retail landscape.

There's also talk of PayPal offering loyalty programs, check-in capabilities and the ability to order online and pick up items in-store.

Early next year, customers won't even need to carry a card, as PayPal users will be able to merely type in their phone numbers and pins to pay at accepted locations.

Spending Bitcoins anywhere? Priceless.

Though BitInstant may not be as high profile as PayPal or Square, the company's new venture with MasterCard could help them make a bigger blip on consumers' radar.

As BitInstant says in their statement about the new card, "Bringing legitimacy, ease of use, and familiarity to the revolutionary - though often misunderstood - Bitcoin technology is [our] primary goal."

BitInstant's deal isn't a direct partnership with MasterCard, but rather a deal between the credit card company and BitInstant's partners.

The pre-paid debit card will be available in about eight weeks, pending the agreement of formal negotiations with MasterCard.

The BitInstant cards will not be anonymous like the regular virtual service however, but they will be a "highly convenient means for verified customers to spend Bitcoin value around the world."

How consumers interact with point-of-sale is clearly changing, and there's an undeniable shift coming in the we pay for the things we want and need.

Via The Verge, BitInstant and AllThingsD

TechRadar recently was invited down to the Barclaycard Wireless Festival in Hyde Park – but this time it was wireless with a difference.

The organisers had written to all the festival-goers ahead of the event and asked if they'd like to enrol in the PayBand scheme, which allowed them to charge an NFC-enabled wrist band with money and also add in elements like Facebook integration too.

Each merchant at the festival was equipped with the ability to pay with the contactless technology, meaning users would be able to leave their wallet at home for the duration of the event.

John Conlon, Head of Future Propositions – Digital Payments for Barclaycard, told TechRadar: "Festivals are the perfect scenario to show off this technology.

"People don't want to come to places like this, and queue, people come to have good time, drink and watch music, so [the Wireless Festival] is a good example using contactless technology to give a better time."

"In the future the same technology could be used at other places like sporting events too; basically anywhere that you don't want to queue for cash is perfect for PayBand."

The Barclaycard PayBands themselves were rubber bracelets, similar to a watch-style accessory, and came in blue, green and pink to denote different levels of functionality, with those not wishing to cash-enable their wrist still able to gain entry to the Barclaycard Unwind perk park.

This area showed the extra elements that users can work with – by synchronising their PayBands with their Facebook or Twitter accounts ahead of the festival they could take photos in a special booth and have them uploaded to the social sites without the need for a phone.

"The response has been on social level so far," added Conlon. "It's been fantastic, activation rates for social networking have been very good so far, almost 80% of PayBand users have associated them Facebook."

The social aspect was more of an 'added extra' rather than a main draw though – the real reason to try the technology is to ditch the wallet.

To that end, the main hurdle is registration. While it could be done onsite, users should have associated a card with their PayBand ahead of the event, stating whether they want to place a fixed amount on the card or have an auto-top up in place.

The latter option is one Barclaycard was keen to see in use: if a pre-defined limit is reached, the PayBand will be automatically topped up with £20 (plus an extra £5 from Barclaycard as an incentive).

Users could head on over to one of the top up tents to check their balance or add some more cash if they were getting low by logging in to one of the terminals to choose how much more cash they needed.

What was great about the festival was the merchant education on the subject of NFC. There was no sign of the embarrassment we've encountered on the high street trying to pay for something with a phone or wristband – when you held up your arm the vendors were happy to pull out the terminal to get you on your way.

The process was incredibly simple – once tapped it was a couple of seconds before the transaction was all complete, thanks to not having to ask to use contactless payment ahead of the purchase.

The security of not having to worry about the wallet was helpful too – even in the unlikely event of losing the band (they were pretty hard to pull off accidentally) you could have them deactivated at any time, rather than losing a wallet full of cash.

We tested the BarclayCard PayBand against the Visa Contactless Payment system on the Samsung Galaxy S3, and while both were equally as swift (and the phone allowed you to see your balance without having to wander off to a tent) it was still another thing to lose at a festival.

Overall, it was really great to see contactless technology used on such a wide scale as it helps with the most important part of rolling out NFC payments: consumer education.

Those we spoke to using the PayBands were really in tune with the way it can help the festival experience, and while the bands were deactivated (and funds returned to festival-goers) on Sunday night, the chances are those signed up will be much more likely to keep using their contactless account in the future.

Apple has adopted a wait an see attitude towards mobile payments after deep-rooted discussions within the company, according to the Wall Street Journal.

While Google Wallet and credit card companies like Visa, Mastercard and Barclaycard forge ahead with their NFC-based solutions, Apple is yet to enter that arena.

The WSJ reports that taking on the emerging market was seriously discussed, but for now the company opted with to go with the Passbook app - launched within iOS 6 at WWDC last month.

Passbook will users to collate their vouchers, coupons, plane tickets and store cards, but does not offer any immeditate indication that a mobile payments service like Google Wallet will be launched.

Ambitions scaled back, for now

The article, paraphrasing an unnamed Apple executive, says the company wanted to take advantage of the 400m credit cards registered to iTunes, with a view to creating Apple's own payment network or teaming up with an existing service and taking a cut.

Scott Forstall's iOS software development team were encouraged to "brainstorm a comprehensive wallet app," but amibtions were eventually scaled back.

Beyond software, the company also investigated new NFC technologies, but decided at this point that the chips would be too great a drain on the iPhone's battery life.

When the mobile payment discussions came to an executive review in early 2012, many "baulked" at the idea, amid further fears over slow vendor adoption, and we ended up with Passbook.

Of course, between now and the final launch of iOS 6, expected this autumn, we could see a new version of Passbook to complement an NFC-enabled iPhone 5 device, kick-starting Apple's entry into the arena. For now, it's a definite wait and see.

However, It's likely to happen sooner rather than later, as analyst Gene Munster says: "They let their competitors do their market research for them."

Via: WSJ

PayPal has told TechRadar that it is "flattered" that the likes of Barclay's Pingit and the O2 Wallet have arrived as competitors to an app that it launched in 2008.

Pingit and the O2 Wallet are garnering large amounts of attention, partly courtesy of big money advertising campaigns, and TechRadar asked the company how it felt about the high-profile new launches.

"It's very interesting for a number of reasons," PayPal's Rob Skinner told TechRadar, "First of all it's very flattering that people are starting to shout about something that we've been doing for years.

"Pingit is a great example of that. It basically does what our app has done since 2008.

Skinner:

"Pingit does basically what our PayPal app has done since 2008."

"We launched as Apple launched the App Store, it was there almost on day one and that's forwarding money to other people.

"That was the original idea of PayPal, believe it or not, back in 1998, to beam money to each other on Palm Pilots.

"It is quite flattering and people are suddenly waking up to the fact that there is this thing called mobile which we were set up to do in the first place."

A big task

Skinner believes that the new arrivals will face a huge task – namely getting enough people on board to hit 'critical mass' and force retailers to adopt the new technology.

"The really interesting bit is: how you do these things? New entries have a challenge in that when you set up something from scratch, be it person-to-person payments or using a phone to make payments in store, you've got to have the critical mass of people.

"The other challenge is that if you are thinking about using a new wallet online or on the high street you've got to explain to retailers why it's worth taking that payment method.

"They aren't going to do it unless there are enough consumers to make it worth their while.

"If you go back to credit cards - the first one - Barclaycard was back in the 60s, but Marks and Spencers didn't start taking credit cards until decades lates."

"That retailer will only take new payment method if they are losing out by not taking it.

"We've been on that slow journey. You can now buy on JohnLewis.com with PayPal, and that's because they could see the benefit."

Critical mass

Skinner believes that PayPal is well beyond the point of critical mass, and that it is now continuing down the route of making its service ubiquitous.

"We have 15 million active users in the UK so we no longer quote total account holders," he added. "It's a bit like how many MySpace users there are! The accounts we quote are active.

"We've never gone in for a big advertising push, and I think the fact that other people are pushing their products this hard is an example of how desperately they need to hit that critical mass.

"From a consumer's perspective they aren't going to be using a new way of payment unless it offers something that's much better than the current way that they use."

"For us it's about putting PayPal in new places and websites – like John Lewis."

British chip giant ARM has signed up for a joint venture that it believes will vastly improve the way in which consumers bank, shop and do business through their tablets, TVs and phones.

Joining forces with Gemalto and Giesecke & Devrient, ARM is looking to make our connected devices more secure for our everyday use.

"The joint venture, which is subject to regulatory approval, will provide a secure environment for a new wave of advanced services to flourish, based on easy to use, accessible and consistent device security," stated ARM's release.

East:

"This will be a significant step in terms of improved consumer trust in secure transactions on connected devices."

TEE off

The venture will do this by developing a trusted execution environment (TEE) that will be used by ARM's manufacturing partners.

So what does a nice cup of TEE bring to us consumers? Well, apparently it will allow for a more secure, user-friendly experience that will speed up our interaction with the digital world and simplify it too.

"This will enable them to use their smart, connected devices more frequently to access an increasing range of applications and services in a secure way," adds ARM.

"This includes mobile payment, enterprise productivity and mobile banking applications, as well as online commerce and premium content services."

About TEE time

Warren East, the CEO of ARM believes that a joint venture and the adoption of a common security standard is long overdue.

"The integration of the hardware, software and services necessary for system-wide security has been slow," said East.

"I am confident that this new joint venture will accelerate the adoption of a common security standard, enabling a vibrant ecosystem of secure service providers to emerge.

"This will be a significant step in terms of improved consumer trust in secure transactions on connected devices."

Google has set up a program to accurately assess how people are using their browsers, including exactly which sites they visit.

As an incentive to take part, the company is offering participants a US$5 Amazon voucher when they sign up, and another every three months.

That trickle of Amazon vouchers is set to dry up after a year, with a current maximum of $25 in vouchers stated by Google, though that will be re-evaluated later if it decides to continue the program.

Furthermore, an Ars Technica reader has flagged up that Google has been offering members of Knowledge Networks, a survey and market research company, the opportunity to take part in a more lucrative, but more invasive scheme.

Black box recorder

While the basic $5 every three months setup uses a Chrome browser extension to send web surfing habits back to the Google mothership, the Knowledge Networks participants will be sent a Screenwise Data Collector.

This black box is a Wi-Fi-enabled router that monitors the "household's web access", but excludes "other devices" like game consoles.

For this more comprehensive monitoring program Google is offering $100 for signing up and $20 every month for up to a year.

It looks like Google has stopped taking signups for the basic program, while the more lucrative one is open to just 2,500 Knowledge Networks members.

Would you want to hand over your browsing habits to the big G for cash? Let us know.

From Google, Ars Technica

Most people encounter PayPal as the simplest way to settle an eBay bill, but it's evolved over the years into a complex online payment system that's particularly suited to smaller organisations.

You can harness the power of PayPal to transform the most basic website into a simple online shop, or even use it to accept card payments when you're out and about using a mobile phone app. Find out how you can make PayPal work for you with minimal set-up with these handy PayPal tips.

1. Account types

Before you can use PayPal for anything more than simply buying something using a credit card, you need to set up an account. There are three PayPal account types, all of which offer slightly different features. All are subscription-free, but you pay for PayPal's services according to the transactions made.

A Personal account is fine for buying things online and sending or receiving money from friends on an ad-hoc basis, but it's not suitable for receiving regular payments due to high transaction fees.

A Premier account suits anyone involved in casual selling, like occasional eBay selling or website sales. A business account suits any organisation that's likely to be making regular sales online.

2. Upgrade your account

If you want to use PayPal to sell stuff, you really need either a Premier or a Business account. To upgrade from a personal account, log in to PayPal and choose the option 'Upgrade account'. This takes you to the Upgrade Your Account screen. Click 'Upgrade now'. Choose whether you want to use a Premier or Business account and click 'Continue'.

If you chose to create a Business account, you can now fill in your information, including a customer services phone number and other key contact details. Click 'Continue'.

Once you've upgraded an account, you can downgrade it again if you change your mind. However, you can only do this once, so it's best avoided where possible.

3. Multiple accounts

It may make sense to have more than one PayPal account. You can have a personal account and one of either a Premier account or a Business account. Instead of downgrading say a Premier account, it may make more sense to open a new Personal one instead as this allows you more flexibility for future use.

You will need a different email address to use with each account though, and you're not allowed to use the same payment information on two accounts. Set each account to use a different card or funding source.

4. Buying button

The simplest way to start using PayPal to accept payments on your website is to use a PayPal payment button. You can place this in your website and then visitors who click it will be taken to a PayPal processing page to collect payment information. You'll be contacted with details of the order and where to dispatch it to.

To set up a simple payment button, log into your Premier or Business account and choose 'Merchant services', followed by 'Sell single items'. Select Buy Now as the button type and enter the item name, plus its price. Don't forget to set this to local currency, since US dollars is the default. Add your postage charge and then click 'Create button'.

You'll be taken to a page including the code that makes the button up. Copy this and paste it into your website as HTML code where you'd like the PayPal button to appear.

5. Use a custom image

By default you'll get a smart PayPal button displayed on your site once you've created a payment button. However, you can customise the image shown for the button so that it fits in with your site design better.

To do this, you need to edit the code generated by PayPal when you set up your button. Make the button as above, but instead of pasting the code directly into your site, open Notepad and paste it in there. Now look for the part of the code that references the button image, for example:

Replace the URL for the button image with one for your custom image. It makes sense to store this somewhere on your website, so the bit of code now reads:

where http://www.mysite.co.uk/images/myimage.gif is the location of your button image.

6. Use dropdown lists

You can add more options for your buyer when you set up your button. For example, if you're selling badges, you could set the colour or other design choice as a dropdown list.

Under 'Customise button', tick the box marked 'Add dropdown menu with price/option'. You'll find yourself presented with some new fields to describe your options. Enter the name of the choice you want to provide ('Colour' for example), and then enter each of the values available.

By default you have three choices, but you can add to this by clicking 'Add another option'. Provide the different prices for each option alongside it. If you want to provide customers with options without varying the price, choose 'Add dropdown menu without prices'. It's also possible to add a text field for specifying personalisation options or other instructions.

7. Postage charges

By default, PayPal applies a postage charge to all items sold based on your location and the value of the sale. You can override this by setting postage for each item, but you also need to set this up in your preferences or the global value will be used.

Log in to PayPal and choose 'My account | Profile | My selling preferences'. Now click 'Update' to the right of 'Postage calculations'. You can set the default currency to use here and the price band levels or percentage charged for postage.

To override this global setting choose 'Click here' to allow transaction-based postage values to override the profile postage settings listed above. Once saved, your button postage values take precedence.

8. Set zero postage

If you're selling items for download, such as music, PDFs or videos (assuming you have the rights to do so), you probably won't want to charge postage. If you don't set a postage price when creating your payment button, the global setting for postage will be applied and you'll have an unhappy customer.

To completely remove postage from the system you need to make a change to your button code. Firstly, ensure that you've set transaction-based postage values to override as above. Now create your payment button as usual without specifying a postage charge.

Copy the button code and paste it into Notepad. Now you need to add the following two lines anywhere within the code as long as they appear after the tag and before the tag.

You need to set separate zero values for both shipping and handling in this way. Once you're notified of a sale, you can email the download link for the product or deliver the product by email.

9. Shopping cart

If you're selling multiple items, opt for shopping cart buttons. They work in almost the same way, but instead of taking your customers directly to the checkout, the button displays 'Add to cart' so that they can continue shopping.

To do this, choose 'Shopping cart' as the button type from the dropdown list when setting the button up. Once you've produced two or more shopping cart buttons and put them on your site, you'll also need to add a 'View cart' button.

This appears below the code for your shopping cart buttons. Click 'Create a View Cart button' and choose 'Create button' to get its unique code.

10. Subscriptions

A subscription is a recurring payment that you could set up for an email magazine or admission to a website. You need to sort out site authentication yourself; PayPal just handles the payment. Select 'Subscriptions' as the button type, then set the price and frequency of payments.

A subscription must be cancelled by the customer to stop the payment. You can manage and cancel subscriptions from within your PayPal account. From 'My account' choose 'Profile | My selling preferences' and click 'Update' to the right of 'My automatic payments'.

If you thought the NFC chips that Google has started putting into Nexus phones are just there to turn your Android phone into a Google credit card, think again; Google's plans for real-world shopping are much more ambitious than that, according to Google's Osama Bedier, vice president of platforms for mobile and new ventures.

It's not just about avoiding the ads for things we already own that 75% of us see online, although Bedier would clearly like to make that more efficient. And when he says that 20% of people are more likely to buy something that a friend or family member has recommended it sounds like the FTC's privacy penalties for Buzz haven't discouraged Google from considering the opportunities in social networking.

What Bedier wants to do is use the smartphone - which he calls "the iconic device of this decade" - to bridge the gap between online and offline shopping.

"We're about to see some major changes. It has the promise to bring best of both worlds. Online you get unlimited inventory and the best prices; offline you get to touch and feel the product and you get to take it home with you immediately."

Some UK stores are already combining the two, he points out, "Dominoes in the UK already gets a third of their delivery orders online. Tesco has the fifth most downloaded app on iTunes that allows you to scan grocery items in the store and put then on your online grocery cart for online checkout."

The Google vision

Bedier's vision of the future of commerce "begins to look like shopping did fifty years ago, when everyone shopped at the local store". But instead of the shopkeeper knowing you because you've shopped there for years, remembering your favourites and offering you credit if you've left your wallet at home, Bedier says technology can give shopping the personal and convenient touch.

"I should be able to walk in the store and that store greets me. I decide to share my identity, I decide to share my location and when I walk in the store it greets me by name, it tells me the cheese I like is available. The fridge may have already looked at what I'm out of and created a shopping list - and it also included ingredients from recipes I liked on Epicurious.

"And that shopping list turns into an in-store map where I navigate the most efficient way. If I get to an item that's out, I scan the barcode and it tells me where else I can buy it or have it delivered to my house. And when I go to check out I walk with that shopping cart directly out of the door. NFC stickers on all the items can actually tell whether the item is paid for or not and the sensor lets it go through."

Already possible

All the technology is there today, Bedier claims - the problem is making it interoperable.

"First, payments need to go digital." Today shops make the choice of what payment methods to accept based on things like how much it costs them to process the payments; he wants to see the choice go to the customer.

"All my cards - whether they're credit cards, debit cards, gift cards, private label cards - they need to move into the platform, they all need to be digital and they need to be available to me at any store I want to use them. I need to be able to use my choice of cards, not what the merchant wants to accept."

And like web sites, stores should tell you what's in stock (think of a Google search that covers physical shops): "Consumers should be able to find an item in real time at any store online or off and to be able to pick it up and buy it right there. Inventory needs to live in the cloud. A merchant used to sell in a physical store and the web came along and they made a copy of that storefront. Now mobile is coming along and that model wont scale any more. Inventory needs to move and live in the cloud."

None of that is going to work if you have to create an account to tell every shop you go into who you are. "Identity needs to be interoperable," says Bedier. "The whole idea of going to store by store by store and signing up for gift cards and credit cards, all this signing up - no. Identity needs to work seamlessly across merchants across devices, across use cases."

It's a grand vision that needs shops and stores to reveal a lot more information - like inventory levels - than they usually make public; and we're not sure how well banks will take to making all your different cards work on the same payment system or how much we'd like shops that remember us a la Minority Report.