Apple Bank?
Is Apple going to be your next bank? It would have seemed a strange question but not any longer. One of the most revolutionary announcements about the iPhone 6 was that it included NFC (Near Field Communications) and they (Apple) had created a payment system that could allow you to use you mobile phone to buy stuff. This has been done before Google Wallet promised mobile payments some time ago. Microsoft have had NFC and wallet functions in their phones for a while but nothing has cracked the mobile payment process. The reason, in my view, is that all the players in the space want to be THE mobile payment system rather than A mobile payment system. Online payment processing giant PayPal wanted to be master of the space. Mobile phone companies wanted to lock payment systems to your phone number or SIM and get cash. The banks wanted to be kingpins too. On top of that was cost. All of the players wanted to charge a lot of cash for relatively small transactions. Small retailers will often