Community

This is not about Apple leading the pack, they resisted NFC for years. The fact they are now adopting this technology shows it is gaining traction and is an endorsement of the approach that others have developed.

There are plenty who are ahead of Apple, banks in NZ, Australia, Spain have already adopted the same technology and are seeing good rates of adoption. MasterCard has recently mandated all merchants must switch to contactless ready POS terminals by 2020 and Visa has begun tokenisation roll out in the US. The potential advantages are so huge and the risks of being left behind are so high this is an unstoppable train for the card processors and banks and tech companies.

What remains to be seen is how resistant consumers are to the new technology, there will be concerns about security around handing personal financial information to the likes of Google and Apple but the advantages and convenience will surely outweigh those concerns.

The magnetic strip is on its way out and once contactless terminals are everywhere you will be able to pay by card or mobile. The card experience will be no different but the mobile experience will become more and more compelling, geolocation of payments, electronic receipt stored with the payment, biometric security and so on.  The huge ecosystem of Android and Apple app developers will dream up functionality that we cannot even imagine ourselves right now.

Would that more people in senior positions were to read this type of article and understand the challenges that they are facing, and read The Connected Company...

The most amusing thing is the title of the first related article below -

Branches on the precipice as Brits embrace digital banking

Difficult to reconcile the two stories?

Brett, I'm hoping my comment will accelerate adoption of scanned cheque deposits then will probably never have to visit a branch again!

If you are elderly and do not know how to use a computer, or you are young and want to deposit grannies birthday cheque in your savings account, or you are a small business depositing cash takings, then you may find visiting a branch is your only option for the time being?

This is both very funny and serious at the same time! I love the ending where the bank write a note excusing the boys for being late due to them assisting the bank with security. But why on earth did this happen and how come this bank is still operating if their security is so lax? I guess the answer is they don't employ any 14 year olds?

Surely not just iPhones, this includes Android, Windows and other bluetooth enabled smartphones as well, see below for another interview with Kulkarni from ZD Net

According to Kulkarni, the main aim of using iBeacon is to help deliver a personalised experience to its customers each time they enter a branch by sending a welcome message and tailored information directly to their Apple, Windows, or Android device — as long as its Bluetooth-enabled.

When my wife turns to me and asks "why can't we pay with our mobile phones" then I know the time has come to take payment by mobile phone seriously! The demand is there all we need is the solution, but NFC enabled phones are already out there and we are still having to tote around an overstuffed wallet full of plastic cards so Apple enabling NFC may not be the solution?

To save everyone else the trouble of looking it up MAD stands for Multiple Access Devices in the UXP world (and not Mutually Assured Destruction)