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The Almighty Buck

Digital Wallets Have Yet To Catch On, JPMorgan Executive Says (reuters.com) 206

Despite major tech companies working aggressively on making digital wallet solutions available everywhere, these digital payment apps in our smartphones are yet to gain traction, according to Chief Executive of Consumer Banking JP Morgan Chase & Co. From a Reuters report: Apple Pay, Android Pay, and Samsung Pay are being used for less than 1 percent of payments at retailers, Gordon Smith said, citing industry data at an investor conference. Ultimately, the convenience of paying with phones will bring a surge of use from consumers, but it is impossible to know when that inflexion point will be reached, said Smith.
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Digital Wallets Have Yet To Catch On, JPMorgan Executive Says

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  • Chicken, meet egg (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cdrudge ( 68377 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @03:46PM (#52873797) Homepage

    I bank with a decent sized local credit union. After they got finished patting themselves on the back for their technological advancement rolling out EVM cards, they refuse to support any of the digital wallets, including Apple's, Android's, or Samsung. Their reasoning (at least as of December 2015) is that no one is using them.

    Well, it's kind of hard to use them if you don't support them and permit the card to be tied to a digital wallet. So we have a chicken an an egg problem. They won't be supported until usage goes up, and usage won't go up until they're supported.

    • I bank with a decent sized local credit union. After they got finished patting themselves on the back for their technological advancement rolling out EVM cards, they refuse to support any of the digital wallets, including Apple's, Android's, or Samsung. Their reasoning (at least as of December 2015) is that no one is using them.

      You should consider switching to a smaller credit union, or a larger bank.

      The NFC support situation is kind of strange right now. All the small players who just contract their card production and management out to service providers like First Data are ready to go, as are the big banks (Chase lagged, but has finally caught up). The middle tier, though, is very hit and miss.

      As an aside, if you're paying using a debit card you're a very kind person doing your part to keep retail prices down, and I thank yo

    • support any of the digital wallets, including Apple's, Android's, or Samsung.

      There's something fundamentally wrong when a payment processor requires support from individual banks. I always thought Google Wallet to be amazing in that regard. I was using it in an unsupported country on unsupported hardware and swiping on terminals long before Apple event announced they were getting into the market.

      Then Google closed the loophole that allowed me to use it in an unsupported country and it was game over. For no reason what so ever. Now I hear companies need to negotiate getting it workin

      • It worked when you only had to pass a credit card number in the clear. Now you have to use a private key issued by the bank to encrypt some data, so the actual identifying information is never exposed. To support that, the bank has to issue a key, and they only do that for trusted partners.

  • by AuMatar ( 183847 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @03:49PM (#52873829)

    I don't go out and about without my wallet, so my credit card is always on me. Using an app isn't any more convenient, its less so. And I have to figure out the risks and insecurities of a new method of payment. I'll just keep swiping my credit card instead, thanks.

    I mean really- who the hell really thinks taking out your phone, unlocking it, moving it over a sensor, and typing your pin into an app is more convenient then taking a card from your wallet and making one swipe?

    • I think the people you're looking for are the ones walking around with their phone constantly out and their eyes so glued to it they can't avoid common objects in front of them.

      Not a large percentage of the population but they're out there.

      • I think the people you're looking for are the ones walking around with their phone constantly out and their eyes so glued to it they can't avoid common objects in front of them.

        Ya, but after they all receive their Darwin Awards [wikipedia.org] ...

    • by geek ( 5680 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @03:56PM (#52873865)

      I don't go out and about without my wallet, so my credit card is always on me. Using an app isn't any more convenient, its less so.

      It's not about convenience. It's about security. The apps are far superior from a security perspective. Leave your card locked up at home so no one gets it when they steal your wallet.

      • In a lifetime, getting his wallet stolen is still quite a rare event.
        • In a lifetime, getting his wallet stolen is still quite a rare event.

          I'd dare say a phone theft is a MUCH more likely event than a wallet getting stolen....

      • by The-Ixian ( 168184 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @04:07PM (#52873965)

        The only hitch there is you are now relying on a general purpose, always connected, mobile computer to hold the keys to the kingdom. We know that there are 0 days out there that can root your phone remotely.

        At least with a CC, the would-be thief needs to get a physical thing and not just blast malware en masse.

      • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @04:21PM (#52874069)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by taustin ( 171655 )

        I'll bet I can hack your phone app easier than you can hack my credit card.

      • Not to me. When my wallet was stolen, I simply called a 1-800 number, and boom, no cost to me CC invalidated and replaced. Also, anything they happen to have bought comes out of the store's wallet, not mine.

        • You are essentially paying a credit card fraud insurance premium. The store pays those fraud costs out of revenues, which are paid out of sales. More credit card fraud means higher prices to cover the cost of risk.

          • I'm not paying it. We all are. I'd be pretty stupid not to take advantage of what I'm paying for. And, due to cashback, pretty much everyone else is paying for it, and I'm not.

      • by unrtst ( 777550 )

        It's not about convenience. It's about security.

        And yet, the majority of comments are all about convenience. That's pushed around more than anything else. It's also the reason the Chase CEO-ish guy things it's going to take off someday all of a sudden:

        Ultimately, the convenience of paying with phones will bring a surge of use from consumers...

        That's baloney! And from his perspective, there will be zero difference in overall credit use because anyone paying by phone is simply not paying by card anymore. It's not like people will start spending loads more money that they don't have just because they perceive it as a little bit more convenient.

        More

        • It's not like people will start spending loads more money that they don't have just because they perceive it as a little bit more convenient.

          You might be surprised. One of the reasons the banks pushed contactless is that they've found that convenience correlates very highly with spending amounts. They've pushed out quite a few things that have made fraud a little easier, knowing that the increase in total number of transactions will cover the increase in losses from fraud.

      • Sooo a device that is regularly the target of theft, malware, is always connected and subject to constant exploits is somehow a safer option? never had my wallet stolen and the card is easily protected by a simple sleeve. I use computers and apps for almost everything in my life but this is one area I just see no real advantages but a shit ton of disadvantages.
      • If someone steals my credit card, I can report it stolen and there's no liability to me. The bank cancels it immediately and the thief has a very good chance of being caught if he tries to use it. If you have a wallet stolen, thieves will often simply discard the cards, because they're traceable and of little value. The only exception to this is in muggings, where the banks hand out little pin sentry terminals for Internet banking and some enterprising crooks realised that this let them validate pins, so

    • by The-Ixian ( 168184 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @03:58PM (#52873885)

      Exactly. It's much easier for me to carry a single CC or Debit card, ID and/or a few bills in cash in my pocket than to carry a relatively heavy phone. Not to mention the effort of signing in to the phone, finding an app, waiting for it to launch then struggle with the payment because the PoS operator didn't hit the right key on their system or some such thing.

      It is still simply easier to swipe a card or pay with cash.

      • by Lab Rat Jason ( 2495638 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @04:05PM (#52873945)

        You obviously haven't ever used a iPhone to make a mobile payment. It's WAY easier than any CC transaction, and no less than 10x faster than a chip based transaction.

        • You are right, I haven't used an iPhone.

          Then again, why would I want to pay $600 to speed up my already acceptably fast transactions? Also, that doesn't solve my boat-anchor-in-a-pocket problem.

        • You obviously haven't ever used a iPhone to make a mobile payment. It's WAY easier than any CC transaction, and no less than 10x faster than a chip based transaction.

          The same is true on an Android phone that has a fingerprint reader, like my Nexus 6P.

        • nd no less than 10x faster than a chip based transaction

          Utter bullshit. The part of the transaction that uses the CC is less than 1% of the time of the transaction. The vast majority of the time is ringing up items, etc.

          In case you didn't catch the implication, I'm stating that even if the payment step took no time "That's $35, but I don't care, have a nice day", it would be a 0.01x speedup.

        • The vast majority of my credit card transactions are under £30, which means that all I need to do is tap the card on the device and it's done. Most of the time is spent looking at the terminal and checking that the amount is correct. For the rest, I pop the card in, enter a short PIN, and it's done. This process takes about 2-5 seconds. I can honestly say that I've never been in a situation where it's mattered to me that something that I do at most a couple of times in a day takes 5 seconds instea

      • It is still simply easier to swipe a card or pay with cash.

        ... until you have to do a return or get your taxes audited, and you can't find the paper receipts. With digital wallets, there is no paper receipt. It is emailed to you, and they archive a copy as well.

        Some shops, including Home Depot, will email you a receipt if you use a CC, but that is not common, and you have to set it up with them for each CC. With a digital wallet, it just works.

        • It is still simply easier to swipe a card or pay with cash.

          ... until you have to do a return or get your taxes audited, and you can't find the paper receipts. With digital wallets, there is no paper receipt. It is emailed to you, and they archive a copy as well.

          Meh. When you need it, you print a copy. The IRS has no problem with printed copies of electronic receipts. They probably *should* have a problem with them, given how easily they can be faked... but then again so can paper receipts. Actually, emails to my gmail account are dramatically harder to forge than any paper receipts because they contain DKIM signatures, which cover date, message ID, subject, and a body hash. In addition, I could always pull up the AndroidPay transaction logs on Google's web site as

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        It is still simply easier to swipe a card or pay with cash.

        Not with Apple Pay at least. I just hold the phone up to the POS terminal with my thumb on the home button (no pressing it, no logging in, nothing) and it authorizes the charge. It's so much faster than using Chip and Pin, and far faster than paying with cash and having the person behind the register have to count out change, etc.

        As I always have my phone with me, it's my go-to payment if it's available at that merchant.

      • Exactly. It's much easier for me to carry a single CC or Debit card, ID and/or a few bills in cash in my pocket than to carry a relatively heavy phone.

        This statement implies there is some possibility that you may carry the card while leaving the phone home. For me -- and for many others -- that is basically never going to happen. I may or may not have my wallet on me, but I *always* have my phone.

        The opposite of your scenario has happened to me several times. I got to the checkout or gas pump and realized I'd left my wallet home, but I was able to pay with my phone (NFC payment terminals are ubiquitous in my area). If I could install a driver's license

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • When I leave the house, my "must have" items are: ID, CC, keys and cash. That's it. I will sometimes carry my phone with me if I want to listen to music, but the phone goes in the backpack and I don't take it out or look at it until I back at home, then it goes back on the charger.

    • by tranquilidad ( 1994300 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @04:14PM (#52874017)

      I use an Apple watch and it's a lot more convenient. I double tap the button and wave it over the reader and I'm done.

      Using my phone would also be easier - I'd remove it from my back pocket and double tap the home button and wave it over the reader.

      For my credit card - I remove the wallet from my pocket, remove the credit card and then figure out if it's swipe or insert for the chip. If it's insert then I have to wait for the network to complete the transaction before removing the card and re-inserting it back into the wallet.

      There's no PIN for me to enter for any of the transactions. Signing requirements vary depending on the size of the transaction, the merchant and the card type.

      So, sorting on convenience and time spent for the various options: watch, phone, credit card.

    • I don't go out and about without my wallet

      Several states, including California, are close to adopting digital drivers licenses [cnet.com] and state ID cards. If your DL, credit/debit, and family photos are all on your cell phone, then what is your wallet for? In a decade, wallets will be as obsolete as buggy whips. Same thing with keys. I can use my cellphone to unlock my car and open my garage. My front door has a smart lock with a keypad. I normally carry no keys.

      • by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @05:34PM (#52874647) Homepage Journal

        Several states, including California, are close to adopting digital drivers licenses [cnet.com] and state ID cards.

        I'd still not use it.

        You hand an opened phone to a cop to show your drivers license...you've also just handed then your phone, fully opened and gave them authority to search as they please.

        No thanks, I don't open my phone for cops, hell, if I get pulled over and they ask me out of the car, I get out with window rolled up and I lock the door behind me.

        "No officer, I do not consent to searches"...that goes for my phone too.

        • I'd still not use it.

          You hand an opened phone to a cop to show your drivers license...you've also just handed then your phone

          Obvious solution: Keep your physical DL in your glove compartment with your registration. But use your phone DL at the bank, or anywhere else you need an ID. No need to hand your phone to a cop, and still no need to carry a wallet.

      • One more reason for you to unlock your phone and hand it to a police officer.... that's totally what I want...

    • by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @05:06PM (#52874453)

      If properly implemented, and it seems Android and Apple do, contactless payment via your smartphone is a lot more secure than anything else. Some advantages it has:

      1) A proxy number can be used for each transaction. Your real number need never be used at any time, as a proxy can be created for each transaction. The bank lets the phone know what proxies to use, and the phone lets the bank know when they are used. so even if the merchant gets completely owned, the information gleaned on you is useless as it was valid for that transaction only.

      2) You have a device that can notify the bank of the validity of the transaction. Not only will the payment terminal contact the bank for payment, but your phone can let the bank know as well. Now there has to be some slack built in the system to make sure that it can work even if you don't have signal, but basically when your phone gets back on the network if the transactions don't agree, a flag can be raised.

      3) You have some defense against a compromised terminal that overcharges (basically a merchant that has messed with their terminals to charge a different amount than displayed. Your phone knows how much the charge was, and shows it to you. If that is different from the amount on the screen, you can contact your bank there and then and stop the transaction.

      4) The two-factor auth is taken off the device, on to your device. You have to unlock your phone to use the payment, so you have a 2-factor setup (your phone + either code or biometrics). However with chip+pin, the pin is entered on the terminal so if it is compromised, it can get your pin. The terminal can't get anything when a phone is used as the auth is on the phone, not the terminal.

      It isn't flawless, but it is a decent step up from the security of just using a card.

      • You get 1 and 2 from the EMV protocol anyway. About 5-6 years ago, a number of banks trialled cards that protected against 3 as well: the card had its own display and a button, you inserted it into the device, read the amount, and pressed the button if it showed the amount you expected. They didn't deploy them widely, because the reduction in fraud was negligible and so there was no benefit. If hacked EMV terminals become common, then they might revisit it. As to 4, the point of two-factor auth is that
    • This is it right here.

      Even for those people who use it occasionally, they still carry their wallet.

      In theory, I might want to use a wallet. It would be very useful to store all my cards on it (credit, loyalty cards...). In reality, I have very few cards. I have 2 credit cards. I personally have tended to avoid loyalty cards mainly because I don't want to carry them and don't want my information out there.

      So for 2 credit cards inside a wallet I'm carrying anyways... it's just not really a problem for me. My

    • I mean really- who the hell really thinks taking out your phone, unlocking it, moving it over a sensor, and typing your pin into an app is more convenient then taking a card from your wallet and making one swipe?

      That would be sort of bad. Personally, I just take my phone out of my pocket and tap it[*]. Done. Much more convenient than taking wallet from pocket, opening wallet, taking card from wallet, swiping, and then reversing the process. Among other problems, the card requires two hands, the phone only one.

      [*] As my phone is coming out of my pocket my finger falls on the fingerprint scanner on the back, so by the time it leaves the pocket, the phone and payment app are already unlocked. As the phone goes back

    • People who have a fingerprint sensor on their phone since that eliminates the unlocking step and the entering PIN step.

      All I do is bring my phone close to the reader and the screen automatically lights up with my list of cards. I tap which one I want and then put my thumb down on the fingerprint reader to authorize. The whole thing takes like 3 seconds. Also, isn't is more secure with 1 time use tokens?

      My phone is my wallet. I have a case that has room for a few cash bills and a plastic card or two, but

    • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      It is really all quite simply, people will never trust it because it does not require sufficient physical action for it to occur. So you must get the credit out to make that payment, the phone can be accessed no matter what you do or do not do, hell you can not ever take the battery out on most phones to prevent it from happening. They need a new un-hackable button on the phone, that can be activated as requirement prior to transaction occurring and actual physical action not a digital one, interpreted one.

  • by presidenteloco ( 659168 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @03:54PM (#52873849)

    The end user wants a single system that will work at most of the places they buy things at, regardless of whether they switch back and forth from iPhone to Android, and regardless of which bank and credit card they have.

    Until the various industry players swallow their greed and agree to get together in a strong standards definition and implementation process and revenue sharing process that gives users this kind of universality, the momentum will continue to stall.

  • by Snotnose ( 212196 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @03:57PM (#52873875)
    First, I don't trust the security of the phone. There is nothing on my phone that I would care about if a hacker got it. No logins, no passwords, no addresses. Just a couple apps and several phone numbers.

    Second, I don't see why I should give big companies yet another chance to mine my data. Especially something as sensitive as my spending habits. I still use cash a lot for this very reason, every year my credit card company sends me a statement showing me exactly how closely they track my spending.
    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      Oh, god, the irony. Did you just bitch about your credit card company sending you a statement proving how closely they track your spending??? Maybe you should look up the definition of "account" or "accounting"... seems like a credit card company wouldn't survive long if they DIDN'T track your spending perfectly.

      The real concern for you should be how they use that data, and who they share it with.

      Second, please point me to the news story that says the secure enclave in your phone is a worthless data sieve

      • by captaindomon ( 870655 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @04:20PM (#52874065)
        Agreed. And the important point is that I don't trust my phone, or any of the equipment the retailer is using. I know that my credit card company / bank trusts my phone to allow the NFC transactions, and that's all I need to be indemnified by federal law and limited to $50 max damages by the Fair Credit Billing Act.
      • by Snotnose ( 212196 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @04:24PM (#52874097)
        My concern is not with telling me I spent $45.27 at Vons Friday, $52.87 at the gas station on Sunday, and $19.12 at Applebee's Tuesday. I'm fine with that and need it to verify I actually made those purchases.

        No, what bothers me is the end of year statement has maybe 100 categories, from food,to alcohol to gas,to prescription drugs to amusement park admission to tires you get the drift. They tell me how much I spent in each category. As none of the amounts are 0 I assume there are more categories, they only print the ones with a non-zero amount.
  • by Aqualung812 ( 959532 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @03:57PM (#52873881)

    The MCX, which has Walmart and CVS in their membership, wanted to push their anti-consumer CurrentC app so they could avoid credit card charges.

    CVS even had a working mobile wallet payment system working with Android, but disabled it when Apple Pay was launched.

    When the world's largest retailer doesn't want to support something, it gets hard to adopt it.

    http://www.macrumors.com/2016/... [macrumors.com]

    • by PRMan ( 959735 )

      Exactly. I used to use Android Pay a lot until CurrentC killed it in a lot of places.

      Now it's just not worth the hassle to decide whether this store has been infected by the CurrentC virus.

      • by PRMan ( 959735 )
        In fact, it's not worth shopping at anywhere but Amazon anymore anyway...
      • by sl3xd ( 111641 )

        It's about what retailers want consumers to use, and how they can squeeze more money from their customers. More secure standards get in the way of customer tracking, which is highly profitable.

        Retailers can't track you by your credit card number with chip and EVM standards. They can with the older magstripe and CurrentC.

        I know a lot of local retailers rolled out "membership cards" to track individual customers the day Credit Card companies told them to switch to using chip cards.

        Later on, I think bean count

  • by QuasiEvil ( 74356 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @04:02PM (#52873913)

    I fail to understand why I'd want to pay with my phone.
    A) Cash never runs out of battery, and the merchant can always verify it's valid without a network connection
    B) Credit cards never run out of battery, and there's a backup process for when the terminal can't call home to momma (although imprint machines scare anybody under 30 if they have to use them...)
    C) Mobile OSs are subject to security holes that are being actively pursued
    D) I have to carry a wallet anyway. Drivers license, health insurance cards, *cash*, etc. So what does it gain me?

    Seriously, this is the standard "wouldn't it be cool if your smartphone could..." sort of thinking, without pondering if it's really better to do those things with a smartphone.

    • but smarter countries have been doing this for over a decade

      credit cards and cash can be stolen and lost

      you should be asking why you need to carry all that other crap in your wallet when phone could do all of it

      • by taustin ( 171655 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @04:28PM (#52874131) Homepage Journal

        All the crap in my wallet is still smaller and lighter than a smart phone. or even than my flip phone, for that matter.

        I am curious a to who is responsible if someone steals your phone and hacks their way into it, and uses it to buy stuff. Once the new standards go into effect in October, I suspect that will be the consumer using the phone, because that's the lowest level of security (not using the chip). With a credit card, it might be the merchant (if they're not using EMV), if might be the merchant service, is might be my bank, but it won't be me.

        • what you have one of those apple phones?, my phone is much slimmer than my wallet and lighter

          your wallet can be stolen and "hacked into" also...cash spent and credit cards used

          how did you get your credit card? through postal mail?....

          and do those credit card companies send you "checks" to use against your account with the credit card number helpfully written at the bottom for anyone that intercepts or loses or delivers to wrong block your postal mail? (I call those identity theft kits)

          I'm sure these other

          • by taustin ( 171655 )

            what you have one of those apple phones?,

            I have a flip phone. It's still bigger than my wallet.

            my phone is much slimmer than my wallet and lighter

            your wallet can be stolen and "hacked into" also...cash spent and credit cards used

            how did you get your credit card? through postal mail?....

            and do those credit card companies send you "checks" to use against your account with the credit card number helpfully written at the bottom for anyone that intercepts or loses or delivers to wrong block your postal mail? (I call those identity theft kits)

            I'm sure these other countries doing this stuff since 2004 have some tech we can look at to lessen the problems you fear...

            In none of those cases am I responsible for anything past the first $50. I don't know, and can't find out, who is responsible if a phone with some kind of digital wallet installed is stolen and hacked. Apparently, you don't know either, or you'd be crowing about it, or you do know, and hope I don't find out. What do these company have to hide?

      • My phone has intrinsic value as a small computer. My credit card does not - it's just magic numbers on a two cent piece of plastic. If I lose the card, I call the company and get them to issue me a new one essentially for free. If I lose my phone, I get to go plunk down $700 on a new one.

        I'd rather carry cheap, disposable things that don't cost me a huge amount if I lose. Plus, again, I don't want my ID or my payment methods to run out of battery.

      • by H3lldr0p ( 40304 )

        Those countries who have been using this are largely free of the charges from banks that drive the US card system. In fact, if you're talking about the many African nations that use phones for this, they're largely free of consumer banks altogether.

        In other words, they had a reason for this infrastructure to show up and be utilized. It found a niche and filled it. There is no such niche in the US to fill. It's already been taken care of. So if you want to take it over, you're going to have to offer somethin

  • by mhkohne ( 3854 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @04:06PM (#52873955) Homepage

    "impossible to know when that inflexion point will be reached" - who says it's ever going to get there? There's a LOT of skepticism about the security of this kind of transaction, coupled with the fact that it really doesn't solve a problem the consumer has - it's not simpler than a credit card transaction (you still have to take a token out of your pocket, and perhaps type a pin or whatever). It's not particularly faster for the consumer, and it doesn't cost the consumer any less money.

    If you want something to take off, it's got to be BETTER in some way than what went before (or, you have to cut off the thing that went before so the consumer doesn't have a choice). Neither of those things is happening, so why does this guy assume that it's ever going to take off? I kind of assume it WON'T at this point.

    • it really doesn't solve a problem the consumer has - it's not simpler than a credit card transaction (you still have to take a token out of your pocket, and perhaps type a pin or whatever). It's not particularly faster for the consumer, and it doesn't cost the consumer any less money.

      I think it's much faster. I pull my phone out and tap it. Done. No PIN; my fingerprint unlocks the phone as it comes out of my pocket. Much easier and quicker than fumbling a card from a wallet, swiping (and maybe re-swiping, if it didn't read the first time). It doesn't save me any money, but neither does it cost me any, and I like having the electronic receipts on the phone (granted that some credit cards have apps that give you that as well).

  • How can I decide whether I like a digital wallet or not when the likes of Chase - who is the largest bank out there - doesn't support these new options?
  • Inflexion, really? I thought it was a lazy writeup by the submitter, but instead it is in the actual article.

  • by Cro Magnon ( 467622 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @04:40PM (#52874215) Homepage Journal

    When I hand over a bunch of dirty green paper, it just works. When I swipe my card, it just works (though there's a bit of confusion on whether to swipe or cram). Apple/Android Pay isn't there yet, and I'd rather use what I know works, rather than fumble with my phone and have it not work.

  • If the transaction fails, at least I have something to eat.
  • by aussersterne ( 212916 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @06:16PM (#52874955) Homepage

    Totally would do this, but:

    1) Apps refuse to start on rooted/jailbroken phones.
    2) There are about umpteen dozen payment systems that do not support each other.
    3) Invariably retailers only support at most one or two (which your particular phone does not have).
    4) Only a tiny fraction of retailers even support that one or two.

    So the result is that you spend all the time setting it up on your device, and then walk around for months never seeing a place where you can use it. When you finally, finally do see a terminal that claims to support the network that your app uses, and you try to start it, you get a pop-up saying, "For security reasons you can not make payments from a rooted and/or jailbroken phone."

    In short, people are willing to use it but the corporate world is fucking it up (again).

  • Here's a list of places where my ewallet doesn't work:

    • Drive thrus - I'm not giving some unknown person my phone even when I'm sitting there in the drive thru.
    • Amazon, etc. - I do more shopping online than in any brick and mortar shop and ewallet doesn't work there at all.
    • Most of the brick and mortar stores I do shop at - They just don't support any ewallet purchases.

    So it really doesn't matter if I were excited about ewallets or not - since I can't use them at any of the places I shop, of course I too only

  • It will never catch on as long as providers insist on creating walled gardens. Create/use a fucking standard, you fucking twats!

    • They do. The over-the-air protocols in Apple, Android, and Samsung Pay are contactless EMV (a variant on the contact EMV standard for chip cards) and the legacy MSD contactless (basically transmitting magnetic stripe card data over the NFC interface) protocol, which are the same as used for contactless payment cards (Visa PayWave, MasterCard PayPass, American Express Express Pay, Discover Zip). So anywhere that takes contactless payment cards takes Apple/Android/Samsung Pay.

      • by Aaden42 ( 198257 )

        It's unfortunately possible for places to intentionally cripple their readers to *not* take Apple Pay. CVS pharmacies in New York do this. They'll take MSD, but they refuse Apple Pay. I'm guessing it's because they want to track your purchases via your constant credit card number and not lose the tracking ability to the one-time use card numbers Apple Pay uses.

        The most annoying thing is that the readers all show the NFC logo, they even trigger the phone's receiver so it shows the "Pay with Touch ID" scre

  • I tried it out on my new Galaxy because - hey - I'm always up for a free $20 (GC after 3 trasnsactions). I was surprised how many placed had upgraded to NFC, especially given how rare the android pay and apply pay apps worked. Then on about the 5th transaction, I realized that is WASN'T NFC that was doing it - it was working on old swipe-only readers. So instead of swiping or dipping my card, Samsung was having Chase issue a unique, one-time-use card number and mimicing the mag stripe. Easy, universal, more

    • You live in the USA where the massivly outdated and insecure mag stripe is stil lthe norm ... ...in the rest of the western world Chip and Pin is more secure than this, ... but so is cash ...

  • "Ultimately, the convenience of paying with phones..."

    What is more convenient about paying with my phone vs paying with my contactless credit card again?

    My credit card needs no wireless coverage in the
    middle of the giant faraday cage that is the local big box retailer. It also does not need a charged battery. I also don't have to unlock it to use it to pay. All of these things are true for mobile wallets.

    The simple truth is mobile payments are LESS convenient than contactless credit cards, and that is not g

    • Why would you want a contactless card?

    • by Aaden42 ( 198257 )

      Your phone doesn't need wireless coverage to complete a transaction. Apple Pay at least stores a batch of one-time use card numbers in the device's secure element. You can use Apple Pay in a Faraday cage just fine. You need to get back in network range eventually to replenish the card numbers, but I've never had a problem, even in some pretty no-bars areas.

      For me, using the phone is much more convenient. It's right in my pocket. I can pull it out with my thumb on the reader to unlock it in one motion.

  • I already have WAY more of my personal info on my phone than I'm comfortable with.
    I, quite simply, don't trust either the wallet systems or the devices enough yet.
    Moreover, I don't trust our government enough yet. Because if my phone is my sole form of payment and it's confiscated or damaged, I'm SOL.

    • by Aaden42 ( 198257 )

      Honest question: Given everything else on your phone, the fact that your bank & everyone else has your actual personal info, and the government has everything... How does having 16 digits worth of credit card number secured with your fingerprint make you materially worse off?

      You can always carry cash and/or a card as a backup. It seems unlikely if your phone was confiscated that they wouldn't find an excuse to claim civil forfeit on your cash.

      When you use a wallet with one-time use cards (Apple does t

  • I love how many places I go to with my Apple Watch or iPhone where the staff doesn't even know they accept it.

    "That doesn't work..."

    ka-ching!

    "Oh.... Wow... That's neat!"

    The only place I've seen that has terminals with the WiFi-like NFC logo that doesn't work is CVS, and I think they're in the same boat as Wal*Mart and Target in holding on to customer tracking via credit card numbers.

"The vast majority of successful major crimes against property are perpetrated by individuals abusing positions of trust." -- Lawrence Dalzell

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