The future of Apple Pay

Everyone knows that the Touch ID strategy at Apple is intertwined with Apple Pay but people may not realize that it will play a bigger role in the future of payments. In the future people will use Touch ID directly on payment terminals while their phone remains in their pocket.

The future doesn’t look good for the banks and credit card companies that are trying to play catch up with Apple Pay. They will always be a step behind if they stay focused on where Apple is vs. where Apple is going. The threshold of convenience they need to be focused on is a user reaching out with their finger.

This is how it will play out:

• Apple moves the Touch ID service to the cloud, touting the convenience of using it across the Apple devices you own
• Apple Pay will build a relevant presence in retail but won’t be seen as any type of a threat to traditional payment systems
• Apple will partner with a few key retailers (Starbucks maybe) to provide direct Touch ID Apple Pay and they will have the ultimate in payment convenience
• Other retailers will follow suit out of necessity with Apple making extra revenue with payment terminal subscription fees
• Banks and credit card companies will slowly be cut out of the equation

Apple can use the location of your iPhone to prepare the Touch ID network so the analysis of your fingerprint can be tied to disambiguating from a relatively small group of people in the area for fast authorization and to eliminate false positives in other parts of the world. As well local wireless connections using Wi-Fi or Bluetooth could be used to ensure that the system can disambiguate from an even smaller group if needed.

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