Evolving technology has fired up the race to bring in contactless mobile
payments services for Britain – with Apple out in
front
This is why Britain is in the odd situation where it sometimes seems as if
the biggest innovation to hit our wallets in 2014 was Barclaycard’s bizarre
“PayTag”. Advertised as a “handy little sticker that can turn any mobile phone
into a new way to make contactless payments in seconds”, it’s little more than
the circuitry of a contactless payment card attached to a bit of sticky-backed
plastic.
Enter Apple.
The company’s Apple Pay technology launched in the US last autumn, and with the company advertising for a London-based “Apply Pay intern”, you can be sure a European launch isn’t far off. In America, it immediately sparked a proxy war between the credit card companies and retailers, with almost as many big-name retailers swearing blind they would never accept the technology as there were signed up on launch (perhaps speaking to Apple’s demographics, the former camp included Wal-Mart, while the latter was led by WholeFoods).
But the technology does represent a step change in how we will be paying in 2015, albeit an evolution rather than revolution. Mobile wallets have been around for years, but have failed to take off due to a combination of network intransigence, handset fragmentation and simple lack of awareness of what is possible. Apple, in its trademark manner, simply steamrollered through those problems. If you have an iPhone 6 or 6 Plus, you’ll be able to use Apple Pay from the day it’s turned on in the UK, your phone network can’t say a word against it, and you can be sure that Apple won’t let you forget it. After all, it gets a cut every time you buy something.
The tech has already sparked an arms race, with Samsung rumoured to be developing a response to Apple Pay, and a Walmart-led coalition leading its own mobile-led payments service. Whether any of them can take on Tim Cook’s charge remains to be seen, but whoever wins, 2015 could be the year we change the way we buy things.
– in pictures
Nature writer and broadcaster Sarah Raven and Andy Byfield at Plantlife identify 10 of Britain's most endangered wild flowers.
Don't miss your 108-page guide to 50 of Britain's wild flowers, an exclusive excerpt from Sarah Raven's Wild Flowers (Bloomsbury), free this Sunday 29 April with the Observer
Enter Apple.
The company’s Apple Pay technology launched in the US last autumn, and with the company advertising for a London-based “Apply Pay intern”, you can be sure a European launch isn’t far off. In America, it immediately sparked a proxy war between the credit card companies and retailers, with almost as many big-name retailers swearing blind they would never accept the technology as there were signed up on launch (perhaps speaking to Apple’s demographics, the former camp included Wal-Mart, while the latter was led by WholeFoods).
But the technology does represent a step change in how we will be paying in 2015, albeit an evolution rather than revolution. Mobile wallets have been around for years, but have failed to take off due to a combination of network intransigence, handset fragmentation and simple lack of awareness of what is possible. Apple, in its trademark manner, simply steamrollered through those problems. If you have an iPhone 6 or 6 Plus, you’ll be able to use Apple Pay from the day it’s turned on in the UK, your phone network can’t say a word against it, and you can be sure that Apple won’t let you forget it. After all, it gets a cut every time you buy something.
The tech has already sparked an arms race, with Samsung rumoured to be developing a response to Apple Pay, and a Walmart-led coalition leading its own mobile-led payments service. Whether any of them can take on Tim Cook’s charge remains to be seen, but whoever wins, 2015 could be the year we change the way we buy things.
– in pictures
Nature writer and broadcaster Sarah Raven and Andy Byfield at Plantlife identify 10 of Britain's most endangered wild flowers.
Don't miss your 108-page guide to 50 of Britain's wild flowers, an exclusive excerpt from Sarah Raven's Wild Flowers (Bloomsbury), free this Sunday 29 April with the Observer
