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United Kingdom The Almighty Buck Apple

Apple Pay For the UK 75

An anonymous reader writes about when Apple Pay will be available in the UK. "A major UK bank's concern over data collected by Apple Pay is reportedly stalling negotiations to launch the mobile payments service in the country by 'the first half of 2015.' The Telegraph reports that 'at least one' of the UK's biggest banks is 'uncomfortable with the amount of personal and financial information Apple wants to collect about its customers.' Apple has been adamant about its approach to collecting users' data via Apple Pay. 'We are not in the business of collecting your data,' said Apple exec Eddy Cue when introducing the service in September. 'So when you go to a physical business and use Apple Pay, Apple doesn't know what you bought, where you bought it, or how much you paid for it. The transaction is between you, the merchant, and your bank.'"
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Apple Pay For the UK

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    If Apple is not in the business of collecting personal data, and don't know what you bought or for how much, then why do they require your information from the bank?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Who says they do? We're sitting staring at an article in which a reporter says that someone else says that a bank says that Apple wants your data.

      The reporter has an ulterior motive in that they want to sell newspapers and keep their job
      The someone else has an ulterior motive in that they want to be paid for their story from the newspaper
      The bank has an ulterior motive in that they don't want Apple getting a foot hold in the banking sector, so they will try to attack Apple's core message.

      Until someone actu

    • by penix1 ( 722987 ) on Monday December 29, 2014 @07:45PM (#48693211) Homepage

      At the risk of getting modded to oblivion, I consider Apple Pay the same as I consider Google Wallet. It is like broadband availability in that it will be predominately a big city thing. In rural areas like where I live I don't see it working. Hell, I saw my first Apple Pay commercial this holiday season and even the bigger stores such as Walmart in my area doesn't have the receivers for this. It simply requires too much involvement from too many entities to be feasible everywhere. First, the buyer has to have confidence in the tech and more importantly the security of that tech. We aren't there yet. Second, it requires the merchant to install the receivers which are costly and again, the trust that it will be secure has to be there. Lastly, it requires the cooperation of the bank to honor payment requests from the receivers.

      Again, this may work in larger cities but in the vast majority of rural America I don't see it.

      • Any company that contracts out their POS terminals and accepts credit and debit cards (so, just about everyone) can get a terminal that accepts NFC payments.

        My local large grocery story (Albertson's, in southern California) has accepted Apple Pay from the start, even though their terminals don't look any different than anyone else's, and don't have the typical separate plastic thing that you're supposed to touch your phone to. The whole thing is built into the user-accessible terminal, and Apple Pay just wo

        • "It's not a matter of having to run new lines out to the boonies - if they take credit cards, they can likely accept NFC payments."

          Wrong.

          Like most small businesses, ours takes credit cards, and the reader is connected to the dialup fax line. Swipe the card, enter a number and... wait until it dials, Beep Boop Beez Buzzzzz it sounds like a 14,400 modem in there. Takes about 30 seconds, assuming that the fax line isn't busy. Not a problem when you only swipe a few dozen a day, but the whole point of the shiny

          • Don't most modern terminals use an internet connection (always on) to transfer data? Assuming you have a data connection, would you really need to "invest in infrastructure" to do this? Or are you far enough away from civilization that they don't have the internet out there yet?

          • is your situation the norm in the "boonies"? I can't think that it is. i imagine most everywhere other than truly isolated regions there is cellular signals, and if so it's easy to run a tethered internet connction (note: the data needs for a CC processor is tiny compared to surfing the web). so unless you're in the alaskan outback i don't understand why boonie infrastructure would be a problem.

          • How many more years do you imagine you'll be relying on a 1980s/90s standard data line? In most of the developed world consumers would be in an uproar of they didn't have more than 1 Mbps (A)DSL. And you're running a business on a dial-up line?

            Don't imagine your backwoods experience is any limitation on the majority.

      • by rsborg ( 111459 )

        I consider Apple Pay the same as I consider Google Wallet. It is like broadband availability in that it will be predominately a big city thing. In rural areas like where I live I don't see it working

        Except Apple Pay is expressly designed to prevent what Google Wallet does - which is to correlate your purchases to a credit card. It even prevents the merchant from such correlation. Google Wallet does it differently - they issue a virtual card that, while protecting your CC number from the merchant, still allows you to be correlated by Google. Apple is simply implementing EMV payment tokenization - it's a standard [1].

        The only company who retains this is the credit card issuer, who will have to authoriz

        • Is it a standard us thing, that a merchant get access to any card data when the customer pays with a credit card in a physical shop?

          Here in Denmark, a normal merchant newer has access to your card data even if you pay with a credit card.

          The data is sent directly from the credit card terminal(The hardware which read the card and card code) to dibs/nets(The payment gateway for credit cards) which then reserve the money and sends a message back to the terminal about the status of the transaction. This transact

          • by rsborg ( 111459 )

            Is it a standard us thing, that a merchant get access to any card data when the customer pays with a credit card in a physical shop?

            Here in Denmark, a normal merchant newer has access to your card data even if you pay with a credit card.

            The data is sent directly from the credit card terminal(The hardware which read the card and card code) to dibs/nets(The payment gateway for credit cards) which then reserve the money and sends a message back to the terminal about the status of the transaction. This transaction status is then send to the merchants cash register to together with the last 4 digits of the credit card number.

            In short, yes. The USA is very behind most of Europe when it comes to credit card security, and is just now looking to catch up. By late 2015, credit card issuers can push liability for fraud to merchants if they haven't adopted EMV or some form of card tokenization. That's why there's such a push for things like Apple Pay.

  • Bank wants data (Score:5, Insightful)

    by danomatika ( 1977210 ) on Monday December 29, 2014 @06:43PM (#48692929)

    Maybe the issue is really that the BANK wants that data and Apple isn't giving it to them ...

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Entirely plausible actually. The banks may well want a bunch of transaction information that Apple is unwilling to provide.

    • While okay in concept with Apple pay the Banks do collect that data. it is with Google wallet that they get denied the data.

      At least that is how Apple Pay is supposed to work.

    • Actually in a larger sense, the "Bank" doesn't want to see the day that Apple launches "iBank."

      • Actually in a larger sense, the "Bank" doesn't want to see the day that Apple launches "iBank."

        Or maybe they are just worried that iBank may lead to Google to leverage it's near monopoly on the mobile OS market in order to set up 'BankDroid'? Google fell on it's face with Google-Wallet but they did pretty well at innovating with mobile OSes after Apple showed them how to do it so maybe they'll reuse the same strategy to revamp Google-Wallet into BankDroid. That certainly is a scary thought, I'd rather have a few wolves fighting over the pay portal market than have Google exterminate the competition a

  • by MPBoulton ( 3865641 ) on Monday December 29, 2014 @06:44PM (#48692939)

    "The Telegraph reports that 'at least one' of the UK's biggest banks is 'uncomfortable with the amount of personal and financial information Apple wants to collect about its customers'."

    The bank is clearly appealed at the thought of someone else having as much customer data as the bank itself. The banks use this data to target their other products (credit cards, mortgages) at the right customers and clearly don't want Apple getting ideas about setting up their own financial products and having the data to do so profitably.

    • by SeaFox ( 739806 )

      "The Telegraph reports that 'at least one' of the UK's biggest banks is 'uncomfortable with the amount of personal and financial information Apple wants to collect about its customers'."

      The bank is clearly appealed at the thought of someone else having as much customer data as the bank itself.

      No, I don't think that appeals to the bank at all. They might be appalled, though.

    • If Don Corleone had all the judges, and the politicians in New York, then he must share them, or let us others use them. He must let us draw the water from the well.
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Cederic ( 9623 )

      The bank is also heavily regulated and obliged to cover customers' losses to fraud and responsible for identifying money laundering activity.

      Apple are.. not.

  • Typical "Big Lie" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Thagg ( 9904 ) <thadbeier@gmail.com> on Monday December 29, 2014 @06:44PM (#48692947) Journal

    What the banks are really concerned about is not that Apple is collecting information, but that their customers will realize the opposite -- that using Apple pay is far more secure than other systems. If people start waking up to the fact that all of the information merchants are getting from credit cards can and will be used against them; then systems like Apple Pay are going to destroy the status quo.

    What better way to try to stop this then by spouting a Big Lie? The banks are saying that they are worried that Apple is collecting too much information. If they can seed doubt into customers for long enough, then they may succeed in killing it.

    • by SJ ( 13711 ) on Monday December 29, 2014 @07:20PM (#48693099)

      No. The quote was "...the amount of data...". See how they don't specify if it's too much or not enough.

      I'm guessing the later. The Banks want MORE data, but Apple's system doesn't allow for it.

    • meh. from the banks' perspective, Apple Pay IS the status quo. customers are still using CCs issued by the banks, and the banks get to earn interest on the loans. Apple Pay is threatening Visa, Mastercard, etc. These people should be sweating bullets.

  • "uncomfortable with the amount of personal and financial information Apple wants to collect about its customers." - Apple executive
    Yeah, right. F$$$ you Apple.
  • by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Monday December 29, 2014 @06:57PM (#48692999)

    ."It is understood the bank is uncomfortable with the amount of personal and financial information Apple wants to collect about its customers. "

    Do realize that they could be uncomfortable because the amount of data Apple wants to collect is greatly REDUCED from what credit cards collect - the statement does not state which direction of the amount goes.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Do realize that they could be uncomfortable because the amount of data Apple wants to collect is greatly REDUCED from what credit cards collect - the statement does not state which direction of the amount goes.

      Credit cards in the UK don't work like they do in the USA. The only thing the credit card company knows is how much you've spent and what retailer you've spent it at. They don't know what you've bought. My credit card company online statements break down spending into categories. Quite a lot of the time its in the wrong category because I've bought something somewhere which is not that company's main line of business. An example would be buying screenwash at Tesco for my car. It doesn't go through as automo

      • Credit cards in the UK don't work like they do in the USA. The only thing the credit card company knows is how much you've spent and what retailer you've spent it at.

        Apple Pay doesn't even know the amount you spent, it's job is only to verify the merchant you are at can use the payment token it is given.

  • Yes, they could - In a similar way to Bain Capital (Nitts old company) did business.

    Then they could sell off Northern Ireland to Eire, and Scotland to BP , and Wales to the Japanese

    ???

    Profit

  • by fibonacci8 ( 260615 ) on Monday December 29, 2014 @07:25PM (#48693129)
    My first thought was "How much did Apple pay for the UK?" They can probably afford it at this point.
  • by Anubis IV ( 1279820 ) on Monday December 29, 2014 @07:35PM (#48693187)

    As the summary said, negotiations are ongoing. The fact that these claims are showing up right now and fly in the face of everything we've previously heard regarding Apple Pay seems to suggest that they are nothing more than a feeble attempt on the part of the banks to gain some better leverage in the negotiation process. They're hoping for outrage. Unfortunately, the only ones who give a crap about this stuff (i.e. us) are the ones who also know that Apple Pay is differentiating itself with its lack of collecting information.

    As for why they'd want more leverage, the real reason is buried in the article:

    The Telegraph also notes that some banking executives fear that Apple Pay could serve as a "beachhead for [Apple's] invasion of the banking industry."

    Which is to say, the UK banks are concerned by the rapid uptick of Apple Pay in the US, are beginning to realize that it's gaining real traction, and are worried that it could be the means by which Apple establishes a toehold in the financial industry that allows them to begin exerting the sort of influence they have in other non-technology industries (e.g. music).

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Carewolf ( 581105 )

      I think you missed the story yesterday about Apple being part of the group of companies defying DoNotTrack. Tracking might not be their primary business at the moment, but it is certainly something they are doing and something they are willing to take PR hits to protect.

      I would trust most UK banks over Apple any day.

      • I didn't miss the story. I read it, in fact. It only mentioned Apple in passing as one of the members of the trade group in question, but because Apple makes for news, their name was plastered in the headline and summary on Slashdot. Meanwhile, the AC who responded to you pointed out that Apple took alternative practical steps to protect their user's privacy years ago, given that DNT was never an effective method to begin with.

        Anyway, I too would likely trust UK banks over Apple...when they're willing to sp

  • 'So when you go to a physical business and use Apple Pay, Apple doesn't know what you bought, where you bought it, or how much you paid for it. The transaction is between you, the merchant, and your bank.'"

    But... Apple does know:
    your Apple Pay ID.
    your iPhones ID.
    the location of the phone at the time (or any time for that matter)
    The amount Apple collected for a fee in the transaction.
    The percentage of the total purchase that fee was.
    The price of every item in the store.

    So yes, "...when you go to a physical business and use Apple Pay, Apple doesn't know what you bought, where you bought it, or how much you paid for it."
    but about 30 seconds later, after doing some trivial SQL queries, they do know all of that.

  • I'm doing development for Seglan [seglan.com] so I suppose that we have the system that will work in UK and rest of Europe for payments with mobile phone. And it's certified!!!

    Our system is based in tokenization, like the one provided by Apple Pay, and already signed by major banks and issuers. So we are working hard to make it 'the market standard'. And of course, always open for business. But in our case we don't collect almost any data. Just neccessary for payment requirements, and geolocalization if agreed.

    Segla
    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      Thank you for that commercial. Where else do you advertize, I cannot get enough of this.

  • Banks are not "uncomfortable with the amount of information Apple wants to collect about its customers". Banks and competing services are really uncomfortable into having another competitor, losing control over your data and things you buy. The rest is just bullshit. It is amazing what Apple can motivate people to do, even in the shithole I live, until Apple announced the service nobody ever heard about NFC payments, now I know of at last 2 or 3 major bank services offering them. My own dad even received by
  • Apple Pay For the UK

    That's not ambiguous at all.

    • Come to think of it, not only is it ambiguous, it doesn't even tell what you story is about - namely the delays in bring Apple Pay to the UK. It's like a story about the JFK assassination being headlined "President visits Dallas."

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