Why Apple Pay is here to stay
With Apple Pay making its debut in Qatar this August before the country began hosting the FIFA World Cup, and recent plans for a pilot launch in South Korea at the end of 2022, it is evident that the popularity of this contactless payment method has been steadily increasing worldwide. However, does this continuous progression make it fair to say that Apple Pay is truly the way forwards, or is it simply a current trend?
The Power of Convenience
The chore of having to find, make space for, and install new applications to your device is one that can end up feeling more of a hassle than it's worth at times, something that Apple has saved all of its users from by having Apple Pay pre-installed on their devices.
Apple Pay is already an accepted payment method by many companies and across over 70 countries worldwide. For users in Canada, Apple Pay has been around since 2015 and successfully partnered with the country's two major banks, CIBC and RBC, just one year later. Even in the past seven years, its popularity has not wavered: according to a study done by MoneyTransfers.com, Canada is Apple Pay's third-largest market, with 4,697 businesses that accept it as a payment method.
It goes without saying that this contactless payment service is available online as well as in person. While some may find that online purchases cause more anxiety than physical payments that can be tracked in person, Apple Pay ensures just as much safety for the former as the latter. With the ever-increasing popularity of online gaming, security is a necessity, particularly for online casinos which have a large number of deposits and withdrawals due to players paying per spin or round. Apple Pay makes casino deposits super easy and safe, the latter being a feature that is surely the most important aspect worthy of praise.
Advanced Personal Safety
It is safe to say that Apple Pay provides enhanced personal security that contactless card transactions cannot guarantee by ensuring that no personal card or identity details are shared with merchants during transactions and card numbers are never saved directly to your device or Apple servers. For those who struggle to remember passwords and pins, Apple Pay's biometric system also overrides the need for memorising any extra details while ensuring these authorisation methods cannot be easily stolen by others.
The increased usage of near-field communication (NFC) technology in recent years can also be linked to its ability to be used without any direct contact; one of the benefits Apple Pay draws emphasis on is the ability to avoid picking up and spreading germs by using its contactless system. While this is certainly an undeniable benefit, it is by no means the only one — Apple Pay still pulls ahead of other methods such as contactless card payments in terms of data security, which has notably been a direct focus for technological developments in the past decade.
As an easy-to-use service that is built into Apple products and is usable at no extra service fee whilst rivalling the safety provided by older and existing payment methods, it is safe to say that Apple's payment service has secured itself a lasting position in the future of NFC technology.
