14 DAY TRIAL // It’s not a mystery Apple has been eyeing mobile payments for a while now. Even the company’s CEO has hinted at such plans, and now the Cupertino giant has opened up an API (Application Programming Interface) that enables payments processors to incorporate its Touch ID technology into their solutions.
Allowing online purchases to be authenticated with the fingerprint sensor in the iPhone 5s (and future iDevices) essentially makes Apple a trusted provider of payments services, which will undoubtedly catapult the company into this lucrative business where it can further capitalize on the 800+ million iTunes account holders with credit cards on file.
But for now, Apple is letting third parties experiment with the feature. CardFlight is one of them. After the WWDC announcement that Touch ID will be open to payments processors, the provider of mobile POS technology said it would incorporate Apple's Touch ID into their SwipeSimple mobile payments application.
According to their description, “SwipeSimple is a turn-key solution that empowers credit card processors, merchant service providers, ISOs, agents and other resellers to offer a mobile point of sale to their merchants.”
SwipeSimple comes as a native app that goes onto smartphones and tablets and allows merchants to accept payments through these mobile devices.
“Following Apple's release of iOS 8, merchants will be able to login to the SwipeSimple application by using their fingerprint and Apple's Touch ID technology,” said CardFlight.
Apple announced a preview of their upcoming iOS 8 that will include an API for Touch ID, opening up the fingerprint scanning technology to developers like CardFlight.
Merchants will be able to log in to their mobile payment application by scanning their fingerprint, eliminating the hassle of having to punch in the traditional user-name & password combination.
CardFlight cites Benedict Evans, Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, who said “83% of iPhone 5s owners use fingerprint scanner. Now there's an API. Obvious move. Implications for payments.”
“The proliferation of tablets and smartphones is rapidly changing the payments industry,” added Derek Webster, Founder and CEO of CardFlight. “We're proud to be at the forefront of that shift in bringing new and innovative mobile payment technologies to market.”
CardFlight of course is just one of many payments processors planning to incorporate the Touch ID fingerprint recognition technology. Payments giant PayPal is also pondering implementation of the feature in its own services, but has yet to expressly state these plans and say how it will proceed.