Experts say that Apple didn’t have to set up an anti-money laundering program for the new Apple Pay service it launched today, compared to competitors like Google and PayPal. Apple said on Thursday that the reason was because it doesn't collect transaction info that can be connected to a user, and the transaction moves money between the user, merchant, and user’s bank.
A search of a U.S. Treasury Department’s national register of money-service businesses didn’t turn up Apple. The company instead signed up with a group of bank and payment network partners that provide the infrastructure on which the feature will operate. With Apple Pay, the phone won’t store credit or debit card numbers; instead, it makes a temporary token that is encrypted and stored in the device. The token then unlocks the credit card info when a user holds his or her phone near a merchant’s reader while holding a finger on the Touch ID button. This means that Apple doesn’t actually perform any role beyond a payment enabler.
