Someday, sooner rather than later, we’ll be using our phones instead of credit cards for all our purchases. But the big question as the technology spreads today is are we — customers, merchants, finance companies — getting into a field that is better or worse for us?
The latest move came from Samsung, which announced at the Mobile World Congress the new Galaxy S6 phones that feature a service called Samsung Pay. It will let you use the phone to pay for purchases by holding it near a receiver at a store and touching your fingerprint to the phone.
Sound familiar? Samsung’s move is similar in more than name to Apple Pay, though it has some different functions. There’s also Google Wallet. And if you are really confused by the names, Google’s Sindar Pichai has announced Android Pay, which is quite different. It’s an API that allows developers to build a credit card payment function into Android apps. (We won’t bother discussing an app called Samsung Wallet in Google Play.)
PayPal enters. And there’s more. PayPal announced it has just bought Paydiant, a builder of mobile payment software specifically for retailers that use their own credit cards. And, of course, there is still the CurrentC plan, backed by big retailers, that will allow a phone to make a credit card purchase with a QR image that appears on the screen. CurrentC was built on Paydiant software and anything PayPal does is likely to have much in common with CurrentC.
Five separate apps on two different approaches are not all going to make it. For Samsung, the big question is what Samsung Pay–the company’s choice of the name showed off its lack of imagination once more–will accomplish. Samsung moved quickly after Apple’s launch of Apple Pay by using the software programming on LoopPay, which Samsung acquired just last month. The design depends on EVM and NFC semiconductors, just like Google Wallet and Apple Pay. [pullquote]For Samsung, the big question is what Samsung Pay–the company’s choice of name showed off its imagination once more–will accomplish.[/pullquote]
Samsung Pay will be available immediately on the Galaxy S6, although Samsung’s announcement did not made it clear whether it will be pre-loaded on the phones or left to be added to S6s through Google Play. Samsung left a mention of Pay out of its preliminary web site promotions on the Galaxy S6, while Apple and Google both promote the credit card offering. If Samsung steps up its promotion, it could easily become more popular than Google Wallet, at least among Galaxy customers with whom it has never promoted the Google offering. Samsung claims it also provides additional security protection through its KNOX mobile security, a potential match for Apple and advantage over Google.
Samsung’s finance interest. Samsung has some support from credit finance companies and retailers, but its position seems some distance behind Google Wallet, let alone Apple Pay. Visa Jim McCarthy, executive vice president of Visa offered a tepid endorsement: “Mobile commerce just got a lot more interesting. Combining Visa’s expertise in payment technology with Samsung’s leadership in creating innovative mobile experiences, gives more choice to financial institutions who want to enable their customers to pay by phone.”
It does seem unlikely that five rival systems will all survive. A grouping into two rival systems seems more likely–Apple, Google, and Samsung combining on the one hand and CurrentC and PayPal on the other. Apple Pay, Google Wallet, and Samsung Pay have significant design differences, but they are very similar at their cores. A critical question remains whether Apple, which has by far the deepest relationship with the credit card industry, wants to control the effort through a union of some sort or whether it wants to keep Apple Pay limited, as it now is, to iPhones.
The roles of PayPal and CurrentC is more obscure. The purchase of Paydiant means PayPal owns the technology behind the design of CurrentC, but commonality beyond that isn’t clear. While the approach is not tied to hardware requirements like the competition, it does not provide the security or ease of use. What it has going for it is mainly distaste for Apple and for banks in the retail industry, but that could offer some success.
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ADDITION: Though Apple Phone was blamed for the use of fraudulent cards, the error was the fault of banks, not Apple, and was as likely to go on with the Google or Samsung apps. The problem was that banks were accepting the registration of credit cards stolen, including some of the big card thefts. The problem was a lack of proper checks before registering the card accounts and the banks are now toughening it,
Do Apple and Google pay support EMV ? I read elsewhere it was one key Samsung advantage ?
Also, “Samsung claims it also provides additional security protection through its KNOX mobile security, a potential match for Apple and advantage over Google.”. Doesn’t Google match Apple in terms of security, on unrooted/no-sideload phones (=99% of them outside China). That’d give Samsung’s KNOX an advantage over both, maybe (I’m not sure how to applies to payments). I know Android’s security is a canard, and with antivirus apps only available for Android, it’s easy to understand why… Is there any actual data, specifically, on actual exploits on unrooted play-only phones, and comparison to iOS ?
As for payment solutions, if each OEM starts rolling out their own, we’ll end up with a bunch of them ^^
The term EMV is a bit confusing. There are EMV devices and Apple Pay (and I believe Google Wallet too) which use EMV tokenization as put out by EMVCo.
I think properly done Google Wallet installations are as secure as Apple Pay; I just quoted Samsung’s claim with regard to KNOX. My only concern with Google Wallet is that it is not clear to me who is responsible for the quality of the hardware installation.
Think the real question at the end of which of these devices is acceptable to the credit cards, banks, and retailers. I don;t think they’ll want to deal with five or more.
Hopefully, Google pay will be A LOT more secure than Apple Pay: “Abraham said it’s not “an anomaly” to see fraud accounting for about 6% of Apple Pay transactions, compared to about 0.1% of transactions using a plastic card to swipe. He noted that fraud rates vary by issuing bank.”
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/03/03/fraud-comes-to-apple-pay/
What Abraham described seemed as likely to come for Google Wallet or Samsung Pay and has to do with the fraudulent registration of a card, so it has to be carried out by the phone owner. It doesn’t look like it would work for long before that registration was cut off.
That has nothing to do with Apple Pay. The card registration is the responsibility of the credit card companies and banks not Apple.
Hi Steve – Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Google Wallet all allow invitation of a payments transaction using the near field communications (NFC) chip in the mobile phone. NFC is the wireless form of EMV. Put another way, NFC transmits payments credentials using the EMV standard, except in a contactless form (a card with an EMV chip transmits credentials in the contact form of EMV). So the short answer is yes, all these mobile wallet technologies support EMV, which is why mobile wallets are greatly advanced by the widespread deployment of EMV at the point of sale in the US this year.
Also you’re right that the current spate of Apple Pay fraud stories are off the mark. The fraud is in using stolen card numbers and is thus counterfeit card fraud using Apple Pay as the form factor for the stolen card instead of a piece of plastic.
A clarification is in order here – so far the only implementation of the EMV tokenization standard is Apple Pay. Others will soon follow but Apple is so far the only one we know of.
I am not quite sure what “EMV” means in this this context : “NFC is the wireless form of EMV” but is most certainly is NOT “EMV tokenization”. NFC was around much, much earlier.
With regard to the availability of NFC-enabled terminals – there will be a LOT more of these by October this year. Merchants have to update/upgrade their credit card terminals by then to accept the new “chip cards”. If they don’t, they are 100% on the hook for fraud and that makes upgrades the easy choice. And most of those upgrades are including NFC along with the chip-card reader.
Whenever I deal with accounting questions around credit cards, I’m always amazed by the number of parties involved who have a role to play and who get some slice of the processing fees. Each of those parties has its own commercial interest (share of processing fees, systems cost, training of staff, customer relationship, etc). So the real challenge is to strike the business deals that allow your new payment solution to build upon the existing financial infrastructure. Put differently, if you cannot strike a sensible deal with MasterCard, Visa, major issuing banks and major retailers then all your technology is to no avail.
Just to make matters a bit more complicated:
1) technology companies will want to avoid those parts of the payment process that would fall within the remit of banking regulators (which would be a costly, time consuming and complex distraction)
2) the technology needs to be as easy as using a credit card, because without a customer pull you’ll never gain momentum (i.e. requiring people to scan QR codes or “pin to open phone plus pin to open App” type solutions won’t do)
3) the US is moving from swipe card to chip card later this year, which means that a lot of checkout terminals will be replaced in the coming months and the window-of-opportunity for new technology in the U.S. is closing soon
4) in addition, the change in the US moves the liability for fraud towards the party that provides the weakest security in the payment process
5) it would be a benefit if the new payment technology would also work for Internet shopping
Why can’t these companies arrive at a common protocol so that consumers are left out of the confusion? They have the internet protocol and Wi-Fi protocol. If each company churned out its own version of a transaction app, they all would fall together. People would not jump ship and would still use their credit cards until these companies iron out their differences. Apple cannot monopolize this application. Microsoft monopolized the Office package and we are left with no alternatives or creative updates. Apple or Samsung would do the same thing if they manage to gain control of it.
Retail Payments—The Reality … http://bit.ly/1nSA1Zl
You missed the impetus for much of the competition.
Data.
CurrentC was created and implemented because Apple Pay removed any transaction data retailers could acquire and subsequently monetize by randomizing users’/consumers’ data. Apple co
I’ll in turn share the data collected, but they did not. Hence, CurrentC was created to allow offline purchase data companies to still append data to consumers that in turn could be used to target them both online and offline with ads.
Exactly. I looked into this a fair bit when Apple Pay was first announced. It seems it is the norm in the payments industry to gather data as consumers use cards. You can find all kinds of info on how credit card companies like VISA, etc share data with the merchant (the card companies don’t hide this, they have merchant programs where they brag about how much data they can get for the merchant, as well as services to help merchants manage the data). Even the tap and pay wireless card systems share data back to the merchants. I would be pleasantly surprised if Samsung Pay doesn’t share data with the merchants.
Apple Pay doesn’t share transaction data with the merchant, and I think it’s the only payment solution that doesn’t (other than cash). Google Wallet’s privacy policy makes it clear they do share your data with the merchant, in addition to gathering it for themselves. More and more it seems if you want privacy, you’ll need to buy into Apple’s ecosystem.
You make a very fair, and pointed, comment on the matter. All of it true, and all of it also points to companies “branding” and “herding” customers into their camps. Some encampments have gates, while others have leashes of varying lengths.
Of course, companies look after their interests, which is a proper thing for them to do. Customer’s should trust any of them, for that reason alone. I’m not saying customers shouldn’t use them, but should maintain an informed level of cynicism.
If Apple doesn’t share data (externally) they have their own very good reasons for that. They are indeed sitting on a metric crapton of data though. What they may choose to do with it is anyone’s guess.
There are not multiple companies with different gates and leashes. There’s Apple, with enough profit margin that they do not need to make money off your data, and everyone else. Maybe, just maybe, if Microsoft gets their act together, they could be another option, but the first step is to have enough profit margin so you can afford to not monetize the data.
You are correct that Apple has good reasons for not sharing data, it’s part of the value they deliver within the user experience, and there’s a strong financial incentive for Apple to keep that data private. You don’t need to trust Apple, but you can make a pretty good bet on the profit motivation.
Yes but Apple requires me to buy an iPhone…
Where is the “common standard”?
The common standard already exists, it is gathering/sharing/aggregating customer data.
There is no proprietary technology involved with Apple Pay. NFC is a common standard.
Then explain to me how a terminal can refuse Apple pay, as CVS does?
They won’t be able to get away with that for long. Again, it’s about the data and the merchant programs, all of that goes away with Apple Pay. It’s a political problem, not a technical problem.
Each and every subject we ever debated is over political, not technical problems…
More or less. The problem is you can’t seem to grok that your problems with Apple are just that, *your problems*. They are not objective truths. You are not fighting the good fight, keeping Apple honest, countering the cheerleading, that’s all just nonsense.
They are not ONLY my problems, even I am not presumptuous enough to think this only matters to me.
Yes, I thought it was self evident that “your problems” means the very small group that shares your ideology. But again, it is just that, an ideology, it is not an objective moral truth. And yet you constantly deride both Apple and its users, as if you do inhabit the moral high ground.
It’s as much an objective moral truth as your desire for simplicity.
My desire for simplicity is exactly that, my desire. It is not an objective moral truth. It is reality though, this is where technology is headed. Isn’t that obvious? But I’m perfectly fine with people who make different choices. They’re not wrong, just making different choices for different reasons. Again, the issue is your constant derision of Apple and its users, as if they are making wrong or poor choices.
See, I do see moral value in your point of view. That is, making something simple for broader use is more inclusive. inclusion is a morally desirable thing. It raises the average and that’s a very good thing.
It’s playing towards raising the average though, not using the devices to their full capacity. Who decides that? In my POV it’s the device’s owner, not the seller who is imposing themselves as the IT department over the owner. It’s a “nice to have” not a “mandatory” kind of thing. That’s where “exclusion” kicks in.
I also find it absurd that my derision of Apple somehow extends to it’s users, unless they are defending that “exclusion”. However anyone may want to rationalize it, iOS is a censored environment. I don’t take kindly to censors. I find it morally reprehensible. You may say that I can chose another environment. I could, how does that make iOS any less censored?
Talk about proving my point. By the way, you do deride the users of Apple products, quite often. I’m also quite sure you’re not even aware of it, as you are clearly not self-aware enough to realize you just proved my point, completely.
And proudly…
I don’t think I said anything wrong.
Well, obviously.
Presumably it is possible to block “contactless” transactions on an EMV terminal; which suggests that CVS is probably blocking all NFC “contactless” transactions; let’s face it, for the MCX consortium, it’s not a problem with Apple Pay, it’s a problem with Visa/MasterCard fees that has these turkeys running around in circles trying to develop their own payments system, a system that still must source funds from consumers’ banking accounts. The members of the MCX consortium are a bunch of fools; I suspect that CurrentC will never see the light of day and, if it does, it will quietly expire soon thereafter …
“This is actually an opportunity for a standards committee to set up a standard that protects the customer first. Then sit back and see which companies join in, and which don’t.”
Apple has already set the standard: Don’t share data. It’s already easy to find out who is joining in. So far, just Apple. It’s unlikely that companies lacking enough profit margin will ever join in. They can’t afford to. And that’s fine, that’s a valid business model that plenty of consumers choose.
What’s missing from that “standard” is that Apple gets to make the rules. That’s not a consumer standard, that’s an Apple standard.
Yes, curse that Apple, keeping customer data private, how very anti-consumer of them, what a horrible standard to set. Oy.
Actually, I was proposing something broader and deeper, and ‘gasp’ company independent. That would mean taking the benefits of any pay system, rolling them up into one and wrapping it up in consumer favorable terms permanently.
I think Phillip Cohen did a good job explaining that. Keeping customer data private, is not as good as not keeping customer data at all. What I do know is that iTunes holds almost 1 billion credit card numbers, non-optionally. Why non-optionally? Who made that rule, was it you dear Gorilla?
What are you talking about? You can choose None in the payment method for iTunes: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204034
I also just checked my own account. Sure enough, I can take out my card info if I want to. But it’s convenient to have it there. It would be quite a pain in the ass to have to enter my payment info every time I buy a song or an app or a book, etc.
The Apple IDs/iTunes accounts for my kids are set up with None for the payment method. They use gift cards.
Moving on, what you propose isn’t practical. It’d be nice, sure, but the end result would be higher prices at point of purchase for all your products. All of you folks that bitched and moaned in the 90s about prices, this is what you get. When profit margins are thin, you’re encouraging poor behaviour.
If the tech industry cared, they could do what you propose. Guess what? They don’t want to, basically they can’t afford to. It’s company-specific re: Apple because Apple doesn’t need to monetize the data. In a lot of cases Apple is anonymizing the data, and in other cases you need some amount of data just to make a service work. I suppose you could make users prove their identity every single time, like a fresh login every time, but what a pain in the ass. Hmm, although this is exactly what Apple is moving towards, an ID system that continually proves that you are actually you. But once again, this requires doing a lot of things other tech companies simply don’t want to do. And it would require higher prices on hardware, no question about that.
You should investigate “MasterPass” and “Visa Checkout” for pain-free online payments, where the merchant never gets any card details, only a transaction approval …
I have investigated these, and found they do share data with the merchants. It’s one of the selling points to merchants.
Of course they share the “data” they collect with merchants; after all, these are still credit card transactions …
You are correct, I just checked mine, it does allow you to say none. This was not the case when I set up iTunes a long time ago. It caused a stir then.
Apparently their policies change back and forth with time. This from 2013.
http://www.igeeksblog.com/is-it-possible-to-create-an-apple-itunes-id-without-a-credit-card/
Question. Having entered credit card info in the past, and now selecting does it get removed, or is it retained?
My concern isn’t whether the tech industry cares, but whether customers and legislators do. I also don’t want you to think that I’m saying Apple’s steps aren’t in the right direction (in this case), I truly want company independent , interoperable, solutions with customer information control in favor of the customer.
We want the same thing here, but only Apple is in a position to do this for you. This is a situation that consumers brought upon themselves by demanding cheap tech.
As for your credit card info in iTunes, I would think if you delete the card info, then it’s gone. Or maybe tokenized in some way and stored, but I don’t see any reason to store it, I imagine it is just deleted.
I’m not sure if this is a recent thing in iTunes, my kids have had accounts for many years and never had payment info attached to those accounts. Maybe you just didn’t know how to do it and now it’s easier or more obvious.
Apple makes no rules; they no more than one mobile interface to the world’s retail banks credit card system; Samsung Pay is on the way, will operate on either NFC or swipe terminals, and will probably eat Apple Pays breakfast as far as “mobile” payments are concerned …
The retail payments standard is already here: EMV–NFC MasterCard/Visa and MasterPass/Visa Checkout …
Apple does not keep customer data at all; the process works as though you were directly using your contactless credit card …
Thank you for the explanation. Keep in mind, “contactless card”? Hellooo….US! We don’t know what that is yet. 😉
“contactless card”?
Yeah, Apple Pay is severely limited in the U.S. by the lack of NFC terminals; that’s why I suspect that in the U.S. Samsung Pay, with its dual system, may well ultimately outperform Apple Pay in mobile payments.
Me, I’m happy to stick with my piece of EMV “plastic”, and sit back and watch all the wannabes fight it out; regardless, in the long run I suspect that “MasterPass” and “Visa Checkout” will eventually win both the online and mobile races …
“Apple does not keep customer data at all; the process works as though you were directly using your contactless credit card”
When I looked into this the contactless cards do indeed share data with the merchants. VISA and Mastercard have merchant programs re: their contactless cards. So it’s not exactly the same as Apple Pay.
True, Apple does not retain the data but bear in mind that Apple Pay is only a mobile interface to the banks’ credit card system, it is not in itself a payment system; therefore, I presume that the credit card companies/banks get the same data via Apple Pay transactions as they would via card transactions, and they will share that anonymous data with merchants as they always have …
From all the info I could find you presume incorrectly. Merchants do not get the same data via Apple Pay. They get nothing in fact. Essentially what Apple has done is built an incredibly secure and anonymous pipeline between your bank and the point of payment. There’s no data to give the merchant. Now of course we’re seeing some card fraud, but that is before it gets ‘into the pipeline’ so to speak.
Sorry, I was talking about “marketing” data that MasterCard/Visa collects, and provides to merchants, not credit card details …
Yes, it is this marketing data that is still shared, via any card transaction. But as far as I’ve been able to find out, this is not the case with Apple Pay. When you use Apple Pay there’s nothing for the card company to share back to the merchant. Your bank has the transaction data of course, but that’s it. You can dig through the info on VISA’s website, as well as MasterCard, they do share data back to the merchant, even with contactless cards. As I said, it’s a selling feature, to personalize the customer experience at the point of purchase, to deliver rewards programs, etc.
So when you say ” I presume that the credit card companies/banks get the same data via Apple Pay transactions as they would via card transactions, and they will share that anonymous data with merchants as they always have”, that is not correct.
Well, my understanding is that Apple Pay is simply a mobile interface to the credit card system, ie, via Amex/MasterCard/Visa, not directly to the issuing banks; everything else remains the same as a “plastic” transaction; so, why would the collection of marketing data therefrom be any different?
Your understanding is wrong, hence your confusion. There was a good article and comment thread on Asymco a while back that covered a lot of the details. Ah, I see we’ve actually had this discussion before. No need to get into it again. You either accept reality or you don’t.
If you really are so smart and know everything, why don’t you supply a reliable source reference?
As I said, we had this discussion previously in a different thread. It seems that you aren’t willing to accept any source that conflicts with what you already believe. But this information isn’t hard to find. VISA and MasterCard make no attempt to hide their merchant data programs, and there’s lots of info dissecting the details of Apple Pay. All you need is an internet connection and the ability to read, it isn’t difficult.
And still, you claim to know everything but supply no source reference …
Ah, the plaintive cry of the troll, “No source! No source!” Yes, yes, we must spoonfeed the troll. Do your own homework Philip, this is very easy and should take you perhaps 20 minutes. I will await the predictable Last Words of the Troll, “So, you have no sources then.” Yes, yes, you got me, because I didn’t copy and paste links for you that means the information does not exist! Have some respect for yourself, don’t take my word for anything. Educate yourself, learn these things for yourself.
Jerk …
No, I’m a smart ass with zero tolerance for intellectual laziness.
I feel left out…. 🙁
I’ve already had my way with you, I must rest my curmudgeonly head.
“MasterCard’s Enriched Merchant Data Service includes anonymised data from MasterCard transactions regardless of the method or device used to initiate the MasterCard e.g. smartphone, card or via Apple Pay etc.”—MasterCard
https://www.facebook.com/MasterCardAU/posts/730970200355513?comment_id=733858983399968&offset=0&total_comments=1
So, as you stated, you are indeed a “smart arse”, and a smart arse jerk to boot; and of intelligence, obviously you have none …
Well, of course the anonymized data exists, it has to, there was a transaction, hence data. But with Apple Pay there’s no way to link that back to the consumer. That’s where MasterCard comes in, as part of this very service you asked about:
http://www.mastercardadvisors.com/solutions/product_list/enriched_merchant_data_services/
Note that the answer to your Facebook question used the phrase anonymized data. Perhaps you misunderstood me when I said merchants get nothing via Apple Pay. Of course there’s data, there has to be a token to complete the transaction, but there’s nothing to link you into a merchant program. The card companies can do a lot more with your data. And both VISA and Mastercard have merchant programs to help store and secure this data.
Good for you though, finding your own info, asking questions, that’s always positive.
All that said, I’m happy to be proven wrong on Apple Pay, being wrong means I’m learning. But to date I can’t find anything that says Apple Pay lets merchants gather consumer data in the same way that other payment systems do (which is the norm by the way).
If you had actually perused my earlier comments you would have known that I was always referring to the “anonymous” data collected by the credit card companies, not that data which individual merchants may be able to collect from individual transactions; I simply expressed my logical reasoning to ask the question about that probable collection of anonymous data on transactions via Apple Pay.
Regardless, you claimed that such anonymous data for transactions via Apple Pay could not be collected by the credit card companies. You were wrong, and my reasoning told me you could be proved so to be.
Maybe you should in future read others’ comments more carefully before you so forcefully demonstrate your lack of knowledge or, better still, first apply some logical reasoning to the question, or actually research the matter first before you so arrogantly claim that you are the only one that knows what they are talking about …
“If you had actually perused my earlier comments you would have known that I was always referring to the “anonymous” data collected by the credit card companies”
No, we were clearly talking about card companies sharing marketing data back to the merchant via their merchant programs in order to help merchants track and monetize that data. You even asked this question: “why would the collection of marketing data therefrom be any different?”
Then you said “I was talking about “marketing” data that MasterCard/Visa collects, and provides to merchants”
Doesn’t sound like you were talking about anonymous data.
But to be fair, I realize now that when I said “When you use Apple Pay there’s nothing for the card company to share back to the merchant.” I should have been more clear and said “there’s nothing *useful* for the card company to share back”.
Using your words, there’s no “marketing data” to share back. The merchant gets anonymous data at the point of purchase, certainly, but I’m not sure after that if the card companies can even then share more data back to the merchants. There isn’t anything left to share, other than a repeat of the transaction, which the merchant already has.
I think we need to step back and look at the bigger picture though. It is well known that the payment industry tracks, shares, and monetizes consumer data. I can’t find a payment system that doesn’t do this (except for Apple Pay of course). Even Google Wallet does this, and they are very clear about it in the privacy policy. There’s only one system that doesn’t need to track/share/monetize your data, because it isn’t part of the business model, and that is Apple Pay. And from all the info I’ve been able to find it does appear that Apple Pay isn’t tracking/sharing/monetizing your data, and every other payment system is.
Apparently the word “anonymous” has a different meaning for you. I’ll happily let others judge what I was taking about about …
Nobody is reading this 10 days later, you don’t need to worry. But in the future if you mean “anonymous data” don’t say “marketing data”.
What else do you think that merchants use anonymous data for other than marketing; that’s a rhetorical question, please don’t bother telling me what you think they use it for …
Okay, here’s what you’ve got wrong. Merchants do not get “the same data via Apple Pay”. The card companies can and do deliver more data back to the merchant. That’s why they have merchant programs that promote better consumer data and services to help merchants manage and secure the data.
When it goes through Apple Pay there’s less data available, and from what I’ve been able to dig up, basically nothing useful for marketing. The merchant gets transaction data at the point of purchase so I imagine that’s good for various metrics, but that seems to be it.
Hence the difference in data, where some is useful for marketing, and other data isn’t. I’d have to dig it up again, but it was either VISA or Mastercard, for one of their contactless cards, the merchant program described how they match up the token with the card number in order to improve consumer data for the merchant. That kind of thing can’t be done with Apple Pay.
We could go on debating the issue of anonymised data forever; I am simply going to, again, quote MasterCard directly and then leave it at that …
“MasterCard’s Enriched Merchant Data Service includes anonymised data from MasterCard transactions regardless of the method or device used to initiate the MasterCard e.g. smartphone, card or via Apple Pay etc.”
It was MasterCard PayPass that explained how they share more data back to the merchant. They can do that because they manage the card as well as the terminal. The MasterCard answer you got on Facebook is only telling you about one aspect of the data they gather.
Here’s some info from their privacy policy. Note the part that ends with “and merchants”.
—–
As a processor of payment card transactions and provider of related services, we obtain personal information about you from financial institutions and other entities in connection with your payment card transactions.
We share information to perform payment card transactions and other activities that you request. We may share the personal information we collect with our affiliates, financial institutions that issue payment cards or process payment card transactions, entities that assist with payment card fraud prevention, and merchants.
We also reserve the right to transfer personal information we have about you in the event we sell or transfer all or a portion of our business or assets.
—–
There’s a lot more info they collect, such as “Contact information”, “financial account information”, “PIN or access code”, “Mobile device unique identifier”, “Geo-location data”.
The card companies can do more with your data, so they do. It’s that simple.
CurrentC was in development before Apple Pay arrived on the scene, and has nothing to do with any objection to Apple Pay; CurrentC was born out of Wall-mart CEO’s throwing a hissy fit over the level of discount fee (~0.5%) that Wall-mart was paying its acquiring bank for credit card transactions …
The backers of CurrentC are going to regret their hissy fit.
This pay system “race” is an interesting marker for where the tech industry is at the moment.
It wasn’t too long ago, that following an Apple Pay-like initiative, Microsoft would have swooped in with some vaporware announcement to hinder widespread adoption. Microsoft has now handed the shameless spoiler fast-following reins to Samsung.
How the mighty have fallen.
“Microsoft has now handed the shameless spoiler fast-following reins to Samsung”
Not really. Microsoft stood still while Samsung took it. And a lot besides.
it’s awesome article. I look forward to the continuation.
You’re so awesome! I don’t believe I have read a single thing like that before. So great to find someone with some original thoughts on this topic.