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Walmart and Best Buy Opt Out of Apple Pay – Required Point-of-Sale Upgrades

47 points by hyp0 12y ago

abritishguy 12y ago
If the technology that Walmart is backing only requires a software update to existing phones then it is not nearly as secure as apple pay. A lot of people are comparing Google wallet and apple pay like they are the same thing - they are not. A phone with compromised firmware could leak sensitive data with Google wallet but not with Apple pay.
- drdaeman 12y ago
  Depends on implementation. NFC has that "secure element" thingy, that is, a TPM, like a SIM card. Implementations may vary. I'm unaware on actual Google Wallet NFC implementation, but I heard rumors (which are not certain by any means) at least Samsung had some hardware-assisted keystore. And I doubt Visa or MasterCard would permit Android vendors to do things on a phone's base OS a manner that could be exploited with a software hack.
  - abritishguy 12y ago
    The card details were stored on the secure element but the pin was not and because the authentication is not done using the secure element it is trivial to bypass: http://cybersecurity.mit.edu/2012/10/google-wallet-overview-threats-and-security-measures/ http://cybersecurity.mit.edu/2012/10/google-wallet-overview-... The current implementation of Google wallet stores your card details in a google server which protects against these attacks but is not a viable business model (google are making a loss on every transaction since they pay it and then bill the customer themselves).
    - stephenr 12y ago
      I suspect they consider it a worthwhile cost to get their hands on a persons complete transaction history
coreymgilmore 12y ago
I have two thoughts on Apple Pay: 1) Android has had cardless payment for 2+ years now via Google Wallet. That being said, Japan has had similar technology for way longer. While the marketing machine that is Apple made sure to let everyone know how magical/revolutionary/awesome/brilliant this form of payment it, Apple is late to the game. Similarly, other products such as Softcard/ISIS exist too from non-smartphone companies. Thanks Apple for finally catching up. 2) Apply Pay will, however, finally give cardless payment the push it needs. Apple has the market power to get retailers to start (read: more than rarely) embrace this technology (for example: Passbook & tickets). That I can fully support Apple for as the iPhone is the single best selling phone and will get NFC into the hands of millions very, very quickly. And with the volume of devices + Apple's marketing of Apple Pay = great news for payment.
- hyp0 12y ago
  The latter part of the story notes that retailers are being forced to upgrade anyway by VISA etc (anti-fraud measure). Apple is riding a bigger push. And because they aren't trying to be a payments company, VISA etc aren't threatened and therefore will cooperate or even favour Apple. Apple is just a POS machine manufacturer.
  - stephenr 12y ago
    As I understand it apple pay works with the standard NFC payment tech that visa paywave/etc use, so apple isn't providing pos machines at all? Regarding the "Google did it first" part - the devil is in the details. ApplePay will provide secure card less transactions while maintaining customer privacy - apple won't know (and don't care based on comments from eddie cue was it) what you are buying or from who. With google wallet the worlds biggest information gathering ad delivery company gets a complete record of what you buy, when, from who, for how much, how often etc. I know a lot of the tech industry treats google like some kind of benevolent uncle who can do no wrong and has nothing but good intentions, but for some people privacy still carries value. Given that google wallet only works in the USA 3 years after it's launch, I don't really think its anywhere near to a competing service in the grand scheme of things.
rgrieselhuber 12y ago
I'm guessing that Walmart customers are more likely to use Android vs. iOS.
- tombrossman 12y ago
  With Android's >80% market share and iOS' approaching single-digits, that's a pretty safe assumption. I hope to see more balanced numbers in the future (preferably including something less proprietary) but for now we have one very clear winner in this race.
  - MrScruff 12y ago
    I would assume Walmart are focused on the US market share figures.
- joesmo 12y ago
  All customers are more likely to use Android vs iOS, even in the US as its marketshare is much greater. Unless you just mean to imply that people that shop at Walmart are poor, which whether true or not, is irrelevant.
  - pessimizer 12y ago
    Why would it be irrelevant to Wal-Mart that Apple's marketshare is even lower amongst their customers than in the general population? I think it's crucial to note that price-conscious bargain shoppers and luxury fashion phone buyers may not overlap as much as the general numbers would indicate.
deong 12y ago
The comments there are pretty much why people talk about a "distortion field" around Apple. It's basically person after person saying, "once all the iPhone 6 users start wanting to pay, they'll have to change their mind." A few stats (from http://www.statisticbrain.com/wal-mart-company-statistics/ http://www.statisticbrain.com/wal-mart-company-statistics/): Wal-Mart, as a country, would be the 19th largest economy on earth. Of every $1 spent in the US, $0.06 goes to Wal-Mart. There are 100,000,000 shoppers in Wal-Mart every week. NFC needs to become the way you expect to pay for things. Otherwise, it's Passbook -- that thing you vaguely remember that your phone can do, but that you don't really use, because in the time it takes to figure out if you can, you could just swipe your card. If anyone's going to push it mainstream in one big push, it will be Apple pairing it with new iPhones. But it's not a given that that's the way it plays out, and every large retailer who pulls out is important.
- colinbartlett 12y ago
  > Of every $1 spent in the US, $0.06 goes to Wal-Mart. I do not believe you. How can that possibly be true?
  - deong 12y ago
    I don't know that it is -- I just pulled it from the cited link. The source cites it's own sources, and at a first glance, it seems reasonably well done, but there you go. Oh, and on second thought, maybe it would have been better to say "through" Wal-Mart. They're not making 6% of the all the profit obviously.
  - svachalek 12y ago
    It did sound low so I went to the link and it says 8 cents there.
  - chrisseaton 12y ago
    In the UK it's often stated that £1 in every £7 spent in the UK is spent in Tesco - a large supermarket chain. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8471807/Its-time-Tesco-haters-stocked-up-on-facts.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8471807/Its-time-Te.... This similarly sounds impossible. Maybe there's some extra constraints they don't mention - just supermarkets, or just consumer spending. I know I certainly don't spend anything like £1 out of every £7 in Tesco, or any other supermarket. For example I'm sure I've spent many times more on buying my house than I will in Tesco in my entire life. This is the sort of thing that More or Less should look at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qshd http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qshd.
jusben1369 12y ago
Apple Pay will have slow adoption simply due to it being tied to new phones and/or the US. That's tiny in global payments. Then I think its early traction comes via in app mobile payments. Things like Lyft and Uber. From there it'll branch out into physical retail. Short answer is the battle at retail is still 2-3 years away at least and that's OK
- WorldWideWayne 12y ago
  I'm a techie and there's no way I'd consider using NFC until it's as simple as swiping my credit card. If it got that simple though - what would be the point? My credit card works fine. Do I need another middle-man between me and my money expenditures? Nope. I already have trouble with Amex being overly secure and blocking my purchases at certain sites and locations.
therealidiot 12y ago
I'm not up-to-speed with Apple's new shiny things, is Apple Pay compatible with existing contactless payment systems over here in the UK?
- djhworld 12y ago
  No, the contactless payment systems we have here use RFID, whereas Apple Pay (and other mobile payment solutions) use NFC Apple Pay probably won't arrive here until next year and even then I doubt many retailers will take up on the offer http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/apple-pay-wont-come-to-uk-until-2015-although-the-iphone-6-will-be-here-sooner-9729972.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/app...
- davb 12y ago
  Yes, it's compatible with standard contactless EMV terminals. However it won't be supported here until at least 2015.
- davb 12y ago
  Yes, it's compatible with standard contactless EMV terminals. However it won't be supported here until at least 2015.
- gergles 12y ago
  Yes, it is. djhworld is laughably wrong. All the contactless systems Visa/MC/Amex are deploying in the world are variants of PayPass/PayWave which are all based on an international standard and will work no matter what. The article djhworld linked to is talking about how users in the UK won't be able to add cards to Apple Pay because Apple doesn't have any deals with UK banks. If you go visit the UK and have an already-enrolled Apple Pay account, it will work at contactless terminals.
ghaff 12y ago
One general issue I would have with Apple Pay is that I use credit cards that give me specific rewards such as money back or airline status-related benefits. Of course, there's no reason that Apple Pay couldn't be tied into similar reward programs but until it is, anyone who currently uses a reward card is likely to keep pulling out the plastic rather than bump the phone.
- pktgen 12y ago
  According to http://www.apple.com/iphone-6/apple-pay/ http://www.apple.com/iphone-6/apple-pay/: > Apple Pay works with most of the major credit and debit cards from the top U.S. banks. Just add your participating cards to Passbook and you’ll continue to get all the rewards, benefits, and security of your cards.
  - ghaff 12y ago
    Ahh. Thanks. I realized it worked with the existing credit card processing networks but didn't know it worked with the actual already issued cards--but, thinking about it, it makes sense that it would have to. (Given that it's the actual card issuers that determine credit worthiness, etc.)
sandGorgon 12y ago
is the fundamental act of a card swipe broken ? On on hand, I can clearly see the value of Square... and on the other hand, I can also see the value of business models like LevelUp (that commoditize mobile payments and leverage marketing budgets). But is a disruption of mobile wallets vs credit cards even possible ? Why would a 19-year old college student prefer it ... or why would a 30 year old professional switch to it over credit cards ?
- Istof 12y ago
  I recently switched from magnetic stripe card to chip card and it is far slower to do a transaction... and by the end of 2015 most cards in the US will be chips probably... so I guess this could be one reason.
invisible 12y ago
It's pretty weird that both Walmart and Best Buy will probably be required to advertise Apple Pay and yet won't support it at their registers that is going to burn a lot of customers. If they don't want to support the NFC payment movement they shouldn't sell the products that have NFC. They are just going to regret this decision at some point when NFC is the norm and they have to do yet another round of POS upgrades.
- WorldWideWayne 12y ago
  The phones doe a lot more than NFC payments. Why shouldn't they take a customers money just because they're betting that NFC payments will never achieve widespread popularity.

47 points by hyp0 12y ago

If the technology that Walmart is backing only requires a software update to existing phones then it is not nearly as secure as apple pay. A lot of people are comparing Google wallet and apple pay like they are the same thing - they are not. A phone with compromised firmware could leak sensitive data with Google wallet but not with Apple pay.

drdaeman 12y ago
Depends on implementation. NFC has that "secure element" thingy, that is, a TPM, like a SIM card. Implementations may vary. I'm unaware on actual Google Wallet NFC implementation, but I heard rumors (which are not certain by any means) at least Samsung had some hardware-assisted keystore. And I doubt Visa or MasterCard would permit Android vendors to do things on a phone's base OS a manner that could be exploited with a software hack.
- abritishguy 12y ago
  The card details were stored on the secure element but the pin was not and because the authentication is not done using the secure element it is trivial to bypass: http://cybersecurity.mit.edu/2012/10/google-wallet-overview-threats-and-security-measures/ http://cybersecurity.mit.edu/2012/10/google-wallet-overview-... The current implementation of Google wallet stores your card details in a google server which protects against these attacks but is not a viable business model (google are making a loss on every transaction since they pay it and then bill the customer themselves).
  - stephenr 12y ago
    I suspect they consider it a worthwhile cost to get their hands on a persons complete transaction history

coreymgilmore 12y ago

I have two thoughts on Apple Pay: 1) Android has had cardless payment for 2+ years now via Google Wallet. That being said, Japan has had similar technology for way longer. While the marketing machine that is Apple made sure to let everyone know how magical/revolutionary/awesome/brilliant this form of payment it, Apple is late to the game. Similarly, other products such as Softcard/ISIS exist too from non-smartphone companies. Thanks Apple for finally catching up. 2) Apply Pay will, however, finally give cardless payment the push it needs. Apple has the market power to get retailers to start (read: more than rarely) embrace this technology (for example: Passbook & tickets). That I can fully support Apple for as the iPhone is the single best selling phone and will get NFC into the hands of millions very, very quickly. And with the volume of devices + Apple's marketing of Apple Pay = great news for payment.

hyp0 12y ago
The latter part of the story notes that retailers are being forced to upgrade anyway by VISA etc (anti-fraud measure). Apple is riding a bigger push. And because they aren't trying to be a payments company, VISA etc aren't threatened and therefore will cooperate or even favour Apple. Apple is just a POS machine manufacturer.
- stephenr 12y ago
  As I understand it apple pay works with the standard NFC payment tech that visa paywave/etc use, so apple isn't providing pos machines at all? Regarding the "Google did it first" part - the devil is in the details. ApplePay will provide secure card less transactions while maintaining customer privacy - apple won't know (and don't care based on comments from eddie cue was it) what you are buying or from who. With google wallet the worlds biggest information gathering ad delivery company gets a complete record of what you buy, when, from who, for how much, how often etc. I know a lot of the tech industry treats google like some kind of benevolent uncle who can do no wrong and has nothing but good intentions, but for some people privacy still carries value. Given that google wallet only works in the USA 3 years after it's launch, I don't really think its anywhere near to a competing service in the grand scheme of things.

rgrieselhuber 12y ago

I'm guessing that Walmart customers are more likely to use Android vs. iOS.

tombrossman 12y ago
With Android's >80% market share and iOS' approaching single-digits, that's a pretty safe assumption. I hope to see more balanced numbers in the future (preferably including something less proprietary) but for now we have one very clear winner in this race.
- MrScruff 12y ago
  I would assume Walmart are focused on the US market share figures.
joesmo 12y ago
All customers are more likely to use Android vs iOS, even in the US as its marketshare is much greater. Unless you just mean to imply that people that shop at Walmart are poor, which whether true or not, is irrelevant.
- pessimizer 12y ago
  Why would it be irrelevant to Wal-Mart that Apple's marketshare is even lower amongst their customers than in the general population? I think it's crucial to note that price-conscious bargain shoppers and luxury fashion phone buyers may not overlap as much as the general numbers would indicate.

deong 12y ago

The comments there are pretty much why people talk about a "distortion field" around Apple. It's basically person after person saying, "once all the iPhone 6 users start wanting to pay, they'll have to change their mind." A few stats (from http://www.statisticbrain.com/wal-mart-company-statistics/ http://www.statisticbrain.com/wal-mart-company-statistics/): Wal-Mart, as a country, would be the 19th largest economy on earth. Of every $1 spent in the US, $0.06 goes to Wal-Mart. There are 100,000,000 shoppers in Wal-Mart every week. NFC needs to become the way you expect to pay for things. Otherwise, it's Passbook -- that thing you vaguely remember that your phone can do, but that you don't really use, because in the time it takes to figure out if you can, you could just swipe your card. If anyone's going to push it mainstream in one big push, it will be Apple pairing it with new iPhones. But it's not a given that that's the way it plays out, and every large retailer who pulls out is important.

colinbartlett 12y ago
> Of every $1 spent in the US, $0.06 goes to Wal-Mart. I do not believe you. How can that possibly be true?
- deong 12y ago
  I don't know that it is -- I just pulled it from the cited link. The source cites it's own sources, and at a first glance, it seems reasonably well done, but there you go. Oh, and on second thought, maybe it would have been better to say "through" Wal-Mart. They're not making 6% of the all the profit obviously.
- svachalek 12y ago
  It did sound low so I went to the link and it says 8 cents there.
- chrisseaton 12y ago
  In the UK it's often stated that £1 in every £7 spent in the UK is spent in Tesco - a large supermarket chain. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8471807/Its-time-Tesco-haters-stocked-up-on-facts.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8471807/Its-time-Te.... This similarly sounds impossible. Maybe there's some extra constraints they don't mention - just supermarkets, or just consumer spending. I know I certainly don't spend anything like £1 out of every £7 in Tesco, or any other supermarket. For example I'm sure I've spent many times more on buying my house than I will in Tesco in my entire life. This is the sort of thing that More or Less should look at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qshd http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qshd.

jusben1369 12y ago

Apple Pay will have slow adoption simply due to it being tied to new phones and/or the US. That's tiny in global payments. Then I think its early traction comes via in app mobile payments. Things like Lyft and Uber. From there it'll branch out into physical retail. Short answer is the battle at retail is still 2-3 years away at least and that's OK

WorldWideWayne 12y ago
I'm a techie and there's no way I'd consider using NFC until it's as simple as swiping my credit card. If it got that simple though - what would be the point? My credit card works fine. Do I need another middle-man between me and my money expenditures? Nope. I already have trouble with Amex being overly secure and blocking my purchases at certain sites and locations.

therealidiot 12y ago

I'm not up-to-speed with Apple's new shiny things, is Apple Pay compatible with existing contactless payment systems over here in the UK?

djhworld 12y ago
No, the contactless payment systems we have here use RFID, whereas Apple Pay (and other mobile payment solutions) use NFC Apple Pay probably won't arrive here until next year and even then I doubt many retailers will take up on the offer http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/apple-pay-wont-come-to-uk-until-2015-although-the-iphone-6-will-be-here-sooner-9729972.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/app...
davb 12y ago
Yes, it's compatible with standard contactless EMV terminals. However it won't be supported here until at least 2015.
davb 12y ago
Yes, it's compatible with standard contactless EMV terminals. However it won't be supported here until at least 2015.
gergles 12y ago
Yes, it is. djhworld is laughably wrong. All the contactless systems Visa/MC/Amex are deploying in the world are variants of PayPass/PayWave which are all based on an international standard and will work no matter what. The article djhworld linked to is talking about how users in the UK won't be able to add cards to Apple Pay because Apple doesn't have any deals with UK banks. If you go visit the UK and have an already-enrolled Apple Pay account, it will work at contactless terminals.

ghaff 12y ago

One general issue I would have with Apple Pay is that I use credit cards that give me specific rewards such as money back or airline status-related benefits. Of course, there's no reason that Apple Pay couldn't be tied into similar reward programs but until it is, anyone who currently uses a reward card is likely to keep pulling out the plastic rather than bump the phone.

pktgen 12y ago
According to http://www.apple.com/iphone-6/apple-pay/ http://www.apple.com/iphone-6/apple-pay/: > Apple Pay works with most of the major credit and debit cards from the top U.S. banks. Just add your participating cards to Passbook and you’ll continue to get all the rewards, benefits, and security of your cards.
- ghaff 12y ago
  Ahh. Thanks. I realized it worked with the existing credit card processing networks but didn't know it worked with the actual already issued cards--but, thinking about it, it makes sense that it would have to. (Given that it's the actual card issuers that determine credit worthiness, etc.)

sandGorgon 12y ago

is the fundamental act of a card swipe broken ? On on hand, I can clearly see the value of Square... and on the other hand, I can also see the value of business models like LevelUp (that commoditize mobile payments and leverage marketing budgets). But is a disruption of mobile wallets vs credit cards even possible ? Why would a 19-year old college student prefer it ... or why would a 30 year old professional switch to it over credit cards ?

Istof 12y ago
I recently switched from magnetic stripe card to chip card and it is far slower to do a transaction... and by the end of 2015 most cards in the US will be chips probably... so I guess this could be one reason.

invisible 12y ago

It's pretty weird that both Walmart and Best Buy will probably be required to advertise Apple Pay and yet won't support it at their registers that is going to burn a lot of customers. If they don't want to support the NFC payment movement they shouldn't sell the products that have NFC. They are just going to regret this decision at some point when NFC is the norm and they have to do yet another round of POS upgrades.

WorldWideWayne 12y ago
The phones doe a lot more than NFC payments. Why shouldn't they take a customers money just because they're betting that NFC payments will never achieve widespread popularity.