The days of searching for your wallet are getting shorter now that Apple has introduced Apple Pay. There is convenience and security that comes by passing your iPhone over the payment terminal with your finger on the Touch ID sensor.
Apple Pay works with the newest iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, once you’ve stored your credit and debit cards inside of the Passbook app. Apple Pay is supported at over 700,000 locations across the U.S., with more added every day.2 Many iOS apps are also being updated to allow payments right from within an app.
Besides being easy to set up and use, Apple Pay makes payments more secure. This is welcomed news following the Target, Home Depot, and numerous other data breaches where millions of customers’ information was stolen.
Apple Pay is different. Its payments are made with a unique device number and a transaction-specific, dynamic security code.1 In other words, your credit card number is not shared with every merchant.
Of course, you have to be careful who you release your information to, but with Apple Pay that list can be much smaller.
You can secure your phone by using a passcode and the Touch ID fingerprint scanner. What if you lose your phone? You can remotely use Find My iPhone to locate it and put it in Lost Mode which suspends Apple Pay. You can also choose to wipe all data from the device.
If you haven’t used Apple Pay, give it a try. Take advantage of the security features and see if you can avoid continually searching for your wallet.
For those that are non-iPhone users, Google and Samsung have recently upgraded or are introducing new services to encourage mobile payments.3
At this time, your wallet is not completely useless, but it appears the end is in sight.
- https://www.apple.com/apple-pay/
- http://bgr.com/2015/03/12/apple-pay-coke-etsy-kickstarter-gamestop-marriott-jamba-juice/
- http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/03/14/samsung-pay-vs-google-wallet-vs-apple-pay-drawing.aspx
