NFC is Rapidly Gaining Ground as an e-Wallet Standard. Will Apple Play Ball?
On July 25 we posted a secondary report about a new iWallet rumor that had surfaced days earlier. In that report we covered Visa introducing "Visa Digital Solutions," a comprehensive suite of offerings that facilitate secure payments across a broad range of internet devices and wearables like smartwatches. Today we learn that the new Visa system will support NFC and that it's being adopted by the largest Telecom in Taiwan, Chunghwa Telecom as well as those in the Asia NFC alliance including Japanese carrier KDDI, Sk Planet of South Korea and Hong Kong Telecommunications Corp to boost cross-border mobile payment services by using a shared NFC tag specification. The question becomes, will Apple add NFC to their upcoming iPhone 6 so that its ready to work with these Asian Carriers e-wallet services on day one? The evidence is slowly building in the affirmative, but it's not a done deal just yet.
Last week the nowhereelse website in France made a case that the iPhone 6 is likely to support NFC. They backed their position with supposed photos of the iPhone 6 circuit board. By itself, a generic photo is flimsy evidence at best – though they made a firm case.
In a report that we posted way back in May we noted that Apple had reportedly reached an agreement with China UnionPay for iWallet – and so the combination of information or evidence is slowly building that Apple may decide to add NFC so as to not lose business to the Android camp.
If large telecoms and companies like Visa will only support NFC, then Apple isn't going to walk away from business. Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan's largest wireless carrier stated on Thursday that they had received a security certification from card issuer Visa for digital credit cards using near-field communication (NFC) technology on smartphones.
The company formed the Asia NFC Alliance in February this year along with Japanese carrier KDDI, SK Planet of South Korea and Hong Kong Telecommunications Corporation to boost cross-border mobile payment services by using a shared NFC tag specification, brand mark and platform.
The company formed the Asia NFC Alliance in February this year along with Japanese carrier KDDI, SK Planet of South Korea and Hong Kong Telecommunications Corporation to boost cross-border mobile payment services by using a shared NFC tag specification, brand mark and platform.
All of the testing for this system was done on Android smartphones. Though technically, as long as Apple integrates NFC into their upcoming iPhone 6, then iPhone 6 users associated with these telecoms will be able to use their new services.
In a new Apple patent application published on Thursday, Apple noted that in some embodiments, the digital card can include a barcode or QR code that can be scanned at the movie theatre. In some embodiments, the digital card can use the NFC capabilities of the user's electronic device to redeem assets."
Conflicting Evidence
In the end, there's evidence that mildly suggests that NFC could be headed to a future iPhone. Though let it be said that there are many naysayers on this point believing that the NFC will never see the light of day on an iPhone.
Apple revealed a new iPhone feature under iOS 7 during their WWDC event last year called AirDrop. The importance of Apple's new AirDrop is that it replaces the need to use NFC. One of Apple's 2013 granted patents for "Simplified Wireless Data Transfers" stated: "Transferring the data may take place using a peer-to-peer connection other than via NFC." The technology which uses Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and likely a little Apple magic, negates the need for NFC which supports what Phil Schiller had stated in the past.
And lastly, much of Apple's market share is with those that are in the higher income bracket and Visa and others are well aware of this. To give you some perspective on this point, Apple's Tim Cook revealed during his 2013 World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) keynote that Apple had over 575 million user store accounts with credit card information on hand as of June 11, 2013. I'm sure that vast majority of Apple customers are using Visa. So it's more than likely that Visa will go out of their way to support Apple's choice of technology beyond NFC.
Though in the end, the cost of adding NFC to future iPhones isn't going to bankrupt Apple and fighting the entire universe would be stupid in light of the fact that Android now holds 85% of the smartphone market. Market share may not matter on some fronts, but when it comes to standards, market share is definitely going to sway some telecoms and others involved with electronic wallets to go with what Android is supporting and not really care with what Apple is going to do.
Both sides of this argument have strong points and it'll be interesting to see if Apple simply plays ball by adding NFC to future iPhones or makes the leading banks, card companies and telecoms bow to their proprietary standard. In the end, as always, only time will tell.
If you have an opinion on this either way, make your views be known by commenting below.
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