The Fingerprint Scanner Will Make Apple a Payment King
I’ve been thinking a lot about the recent announcement of the iPhone 5s and the fingerprint scanner that was included. It was given about 1/3 of the attention for the 5s announcement, but it really is a much bigger deal.
Think about the possibilities of payments with the best authentication on the market - your fingerprint. Apple largely set themselves out of the NFC and mobile payments game by introducing Passbook. Give third parties the ability to handle payments, points and loyalty cards all while not giving in to NFC. When was the last time you used NFC for a payment? What if you lost your phone…with NFC someone could easily just tap your phone to make a payment.
The fingerprint scanner changes everything and Apple is starting small. By weaning users on to making iTunes/App Store payments with their fingers they are slowly training users to a new way to pay with their phone. Who knows what will happen next year with payments. Apple already handles roughly $12 billion/year, and just imagine if you could make purchases online or in store with your iTunes account and your finger.