Apple may be dwelling on the idea of venturing into the mobile payments vertical – at least as far as payments for physical goods from iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touch is concerned – to rival the likes of PayPal, Square and Google Wallet.
According to a Friday report on The Wall Street Journal, Apple’s iTunes and App Store chief, Eddy Cue, “has met with industry executives to discuss Apple’s interest in handling payments for physical goods and services on its devices.”
In addition to that sources have indicated that a VP within the company’s Online Stores division, Jennifer Bailey, will now be the in charge of building the new mobile payments service.
The mobile payments idea is two-fold one. First Apple will convince retailers to integrate iTunes payment system into their online systems. Secondly, the payment system will get integrated with user accounts on iTunes, which already holds data from millions of credit card users, allowing users to pay for the products they buy on retail sites by selecting Apple’s system during the checkout process.
The iPad maker, which already offers purchases of digital content in its online store iTunes, has also enabled its iTunes users to buy mobile applications using their personal iTunes account.
Owners of Apple’s iPhone 5S handset, in order to authorise a purchase, will be able to use the fingerprint reader. Also, users owning an older iPhone need not worry either as they will have the option to use the iTunes password or a security pin to confirm the purchase.
Last year, Apple confirmed having around 575 million registered iTunes store users. The company also said that over the last five years it has managed to sell around 375 million iPhones and 155 million iPads since its 2010 launch.
Why should a retailer use Apple’s payments system? They might have the eco system jigsaw covered. Business proposition needs to be innovative if theyr are to succeed.