Earlier this week, I wrote about some of the exciting facets that may come with the new Apple iWallet on the iPhone 6. In that post, I mentioned that, based on the enormity of Apple and their ability to negotiate, it may just be that they could get a lower rate on credit card commissions. The news is that this is indeed the case. Supposedly, Apple will be making almost nothing on the fees (still, “almost nothing” times millions of customers still equals a lot of money).
While this may not mean much short term to the consumer, it may open the doors for Apple to bring peer-to-peer payments across the devices. If that was the case, it could be a great way to meet minimum spend. Think Amazon Payments without Amazon and the check they send. 🙂 Will this be announced soon? Most likely, no. But, it is nice to know that the possibilities are there. Apple just needs to find a way for it to bring them money or exposure (the referral kind).
Another bit of news that still makes me jump with excitement (until I remembered that CVS doesn’t mean as much to me anymore) is that Apple has (allegedly) signed deals with Walgreens and CVS for their new payment system. I had also said in the post that, even though NFC has been around for a while, Apple has the infrastructure to bring to bear to encourage retailers to jump on board. The more retailers that are brought on board, the better it will be. While iWallet will not likely replace your wallet for some time, it will be extremely convenient if they pack it with the geolocation services that have been mentioned as well as a way to preset cards based on stores.
Of course, we will find out more about this on Tuesday!
