Apple Pay
Sep 16, 2014, 12:00 PM | Updated: 12:00 pm
As we continue to see major data breaches, it’s obvious that our credit card system needs a major overhaul.
The reason that large retailers are targeted so often is because they store lots of valuable credit card information.
This needs to change and that’s the aim of the upcoming Apple Pay mobile payment service.
Instead of giving merchants your credit card information, Apple Pay generates a one-time use code that is only usable by that merchant. So even if a hacker intercepts that code, it’s kind of useless.
Apple is also using the Touch ID fingerprint detection as verification, so even if a thief gets your phone, they can’t use it make purchases.
While Apple’s approach to security is quite impressive, it’s only going to be available to iPhone 6 and Apple Watch users for the time being.
Another hurdle is that the Touch to pay terminals needed by merchants are pretty rare at the moment.
The Mobile Payment race just got a huge boost with the Apple Pay announcement, but we’ve got a long way to go yet.
