According to people close to Apple, the company is working with NXP Semiconductors NV, a Dutch chipmaker, to put near-field communications(NFC) tech into the next iPhone. This would allow users to pay by tapping their iPhone to ticketing systems or payment terminals. The secure, short-range wireless technology will allow for pay-by-touch capability as well as other applications.
Analysts suggest that if Apple got into the smartphone payments market, it would galvanize the system and it would soon be a wide-spread system, despite the fact that tap-to-pay tech has been built into other mobile phones for about eight years. The most important thing to note is that Apple holds the credit card details for around 800 million customers, which gives the Cupertino company a headstart advantage over other companies. Apple has been recruiting people with experience in mobile payments for the last few months in both the United States and Europe.
The first NFC phone was introduced by Nokia way back in 2006, and Samsung and LG have been using the technology since 2011. NXP also supplies NFC chips for some of Samsung’s Galaxy phones. So far only Apple has held out, which means only half of American smartphones have NFC.
