I live in Canada, where chip and pin terminals have been around for years and NFC is in a lot more places than I had initially realized. With that being said, I have never seen a terminal without a magnetic strip reader. Seriously, not one. I don%u2019t mean to say this to embolden Samsung (or LoopPay%u2019s) solution %u2013 it doesn%u2019t seem the least bit secure %u2013 but just to correct some commenters thinking that when Chip and pin terminals become more widespread in the US they won%u2019t also be taking the mag strip reader off it as well. The new readers will just have three options (strip reader on the top/side, chip insert ant the bottom/top, and tap/nfc on the top or behind the screen).
I don%u2019t think LoopPay will take off, but lack of mag strip readers won%u2019t be the reason for it.
I don't understand this. Don't Samsung phones already have NFC for mobile payments baked into their designs? Haven't those users already been able to piggyback onto the Apple Pay explosion of the last several weeks?
As for the technology in LoopPay, the biggest problem I can see is security. You're basically using a fob to replicate a swipe at the terminal without having to do an actual swipe. The biggest problem with this is that the old swipe technology is without any encryption, which makes it no safer than a credit card. They are talking about doing tokenization, which would certainly help. But it's still unencrypted with is a security vector problem.
I don't understand this. Don't Samsung phones already have NFC for mobile payments baked into their designs?
That’s right; you don’t understand.
If you’re not forcing the user to change the service they use every other year for no other reason than Apple has improved upon the garbage you used to have out, you’re out of touch with the user’s needs. There’s nothing people like more than to have to relearn how to do the things they’ve come to require from their devices.
A technology based on the cloning of incredibly insecure magnetic stripes? How can anyone take this seriously when chip & PIN has been standard throughout the rest of the world for years? Apple's solution "just works" with the contactless payment terminals already being rolled out worldwide by banks, but adds the security of Touch ID and increases privacy.
Mobile payments (in U.S.) is something that has been talked about for years...until now. Billions are being spent because Apple has stepped into this market just a few months ago. Here's the copy breakdown so far. Huawei copies Apple products. Samsung copies Apple features/services. Xiaomi just wants to be Apple.
Billions? Based on what source? I'm not trying to argue ?Pay won't be successful as I think it will be huge. But it's early days and will take time. I know where I live more stores don't support it than do. My local grocery stores, liquor stores, department stores, target, Walmart etc. none of them accept NFC based payments right now.
Yes and yes. I think we all knew Samsung's day of reckoning would come. The split with Google will come and it will be beautifully ugly.
I think there are blatant examples of copying but I don't agree that everything is copying. Otherwise we could argue that Apple copied Android with widgets, 3rd party keyboards and extensibility in iOS 8 (all of which Android has before iOS did). Of course I think that's nonsense because the implementation and user experience is different. And that will be the same case here, ?Pay is simple and elegant and extremely user friendly. I doubt whatever Samsung does will be anything like that.
Billions? Based on what source? I'm not trying to argue ?Pay won't be successful as I think it will be huge. But it's early days and will take time. I know where I live more stores don't support it than do. My local grocery stores, liquor stores, department stores, target, Walmart etc. none of them accept NFC based payments right now.
Based on the MasterCard and Visa. The deadline to switch to non-swiped card readers is less than a year away. Any new point of sale system will support NFC and Apple Pay. The retailers and banks that Apple has already worked with have probably spent collective billions to upgrade terminals and infrastructure. The other 95% of remaining retailers will gladly spend billions more otherwise they will be on the hook for fraud.
Based on the MasterCard and Visa. The deadline to switch to non-swiped card readers is less than a year away. Any new point of sale system will support NFC and Apple Pay. The retailers and banks that Apple has already worked with have probably spent collective billions to upgrade terminals and infrastructure. The other 95% of remaining retailers will gladly spend billions more otherwise they will be on the hook for fraud.
I think you've pointed out the key: the card issuers who no longer will subsidize fraud and are going to wield a big stick at the merchants. There'll be transition for the time it will take to turn over the established user base of swipe cards but once the card issuers replace all the cards with ones that can't be swiped, even on hardware that has a swipe slot that will be disabled and that payment option eliminated. Merchants just aren't going to absorb the fraud.
I live in Canada, where chip and pin terminals have been around for years ... I have never seen a terminal without a magnetic strip reader. Seriously, not one. ... The new readers will just have three options (strip reader on the top/side, chip insert ant the bottom/top, and tap/nfc on the top or behind the screen).
I don't think LoopPay will take off, but lack of mag strip readers won't be the reason for it.
This. New terminals is not the same as "no mag strip reader".
This. New terminals is not the same as "no mag strip reader".
In Eu, there is places (mostly supermarkets) where only EMV cards are accepted now. Of course EU banks have not distributed swipe cards since 10 years or so.
Australia has forbidden swipe transactions last year
The first chart is a joke. As soon as retailers switch to chip and pin, LoopPay will cease to work and the percentages will be inverted because every chip and pin - enabled reader that has come out in the last two years is NFC-enabled.
So Samsung once again bets on the wrong horse in their pursuit to out-Apple Apple.
Couldn't agree more. And as far as LoopPap goes, the systems that have those "just hold your card near it" stickers are out there. They had them at a couple local fast food places were someone took them and about 6-8 months after that I haven't seen any. I think the millions of LoopPay out there compared to the hundreds of thousands of Apple Pay enabled systems (if MCX/CurrentC had not threatened their partners) is a farce unless you really count the nonfunctional and stolen ones.
So LoopPay requires special hardware (dongle) to inject a facsimile of a magnetic card swipe signal wirelessly. Interesting concept for greatest compatibility, but unless there's some serious security measures going on behind the scenes, someone can sniff this signal from afar. Looks like Samsung is going for widespread adoption in a bid to catch up to the industry.
There can't be ANY security measures going on here. What they're doing is transmitting an electromagnetic signal from the phone directly into the mag stripe read head, therefore in order for the reader to "think" it just scanned a card, the signal must carry the mag stripe info exactly as it is on the card. And it's on the card in a totally insecure way. Also, this means that the phone must store all the mag stripe info in its memory (now THAT is probably encrypted... but how well?). There is no Secure Enclave in an Android phone like there is in an iPhone, so I wouldn't be surprised that this stored CC info is just there for the taking with little effort. Same applies to the fingerprint data stored on the Android phone.
I'll go pop some popcorn and watch this one play out. Should be interesting.
I believe Apple will deliver something within about a year, that will make retailers more than happy. But they will do it right by still protecting the users' data. No doubt there will be value cards, vouchers and loyalty discounts. I guess these things would be opt-in and based on passbook. So if Apple is working on this, and I strongly believe so, this might be a tentpole feature for iOS 9. And this would suck the air out of all these other mobile paying systems that are merely catching up.
Agree. Apple likes to line up tent pole features, and this is a good candidate. This again would be a win for consumers, a win for merchants (getting more on board), and drive further adoption of mobile commerce. Right now, Apple is providing two key features with ?Pay - convenience (for those without NFC cards), and most importantly, security (biometric/token/secure storage - the most secure payment solution to date). A huge additional benefit waiting to be tapped is bringing loyalty cards, gift cards, etc. into the Apply Pay solution. It is simply physically challenging to carry all of the loyalty and specialty credit cards that consumers want to carry to get their rewards/discounts. My wife's wallet has about 12 cards in it! Even though I could be getting points for our accounts, I don't want to carry those cards in my wallet. If the cards were virtual, part of Passbook and usable with Apple Pay, it would happen (almost) automatically.
No matter what Samsung does for mobile payments, it is hard to see them getting much traction, as it would be competing with Google Wallet (most brand recognition in the Android space). What is Samsung going to bring to the table that entices the banks & card networks?
Australia has forbidden swipe transactions last year
No we haven't.
We got rid of signature based transactions in August, our terminals still have the magnetic strip reader and we get the odd non-Australian credit card transaction where a signature is still required.
I'm on my fourth card for one of my accounts because the chips keep failing, the latest card has a different design, maybe this card will last longer.
I've never seen anyone pay with a phone, despite a few of our banks jumping on board with Samsung, Apple Pay doesn't work here yet.
Not so sure about that. These changes can happen pretty quick. They have at least in western Europe.
I'm glad you brought that up ... chip & pin is not being used in every country around the world. I would bet half the reason magnetic stipe readers still exist in Europe along side chip&pin is in no small part because of the US, and other countries. If a US tourist visits Europe, they won't be able to use their credit cards if there were no magnetic swipe. Even if the change in the US happens quickly, unless the entire world switches within a year of the US, there is still going to be a need for magnetic swipe for credit cards issued outside of the US. So it's very unlikely that that new card readers would eliminate the swipe option for at least the next few years. And I'm not convinced gift cards would ever go to the expense to use chip & pin, it's just an unnecessary level of security for a one-time use card.
The thing I don't get about this solution (OK, one of the things I don't get about it) is how sending an EM pulse to simulate a magnetic card swipe is going to be convenient.
OK, so they're trying to show they're better than Apple because it doesn't need the vendor to update their equipment (which they're going to have to do soon enough, anyway). Instant access to all terminals. But, how well is it going to work? What are the tolerances on how you point it at the terminal? How many people are going to spend five minutes trying to find the sweet spot for the thing to work?
Don't get me wrong, I think being able to spoof a card swipe with a magnetic field is a great idea, I just don't see this as being a good use of it.
Come to think of it, I can't think of many "good" uses for it that could be classed as legal.
This sounds like a credit card magnetic stripe emulator. Without the secure element and tokenizer this buys you almost nothing from a security or privacy standpoint. It only cosmetically resembles Apple Pay usage scenarios and is an entirely different payment model under the hood. It's Faux Pay. This basically addresses wallet bulge and is just as vulnerable to the types of hacks launched against Target and Home Depot that exploited traditional magnetic stripe credit cards and the retailer's storage of customer credit card data in insecure repositories.
Comments
I don%u2019t think LoopPay will take off, but lack of mag strip readers won%u2019t be the reason for it.
I don't understand this. Don't Samsung phones already have NFC for mobile payments baked into their designs? Haven't those users already been able to piggyback onto the Apple Pay explosion of the last several weeks?
As for the technology in LoopPay, the biggest problem I can see is security. You're basically using a fob to replicate a swipe at the terminal without having to do an actual swipe. The biggest problem with this is that the old swipe technology is without any encryption, which makes it no safer than a credit card. They are talking about doing tokenization, which would certainly help. But it's still unencrypted with is a security vector problem.
"I'm gay, too!" -- Boo-Keun Yoon
That’s right; you don’t understand.
If you’re not forcing the user to change the service they use every other year for no other reason than Apple has improved upon the garbage you used to have out, you’re out of touch with the user’s needs. There’s nothing people like more than to have to relearn how to do the things they’ve come to require from their devices.
Billions? Based on what source? I'm not trying to argue ?Pay won't be successful as I think it will be huge. But it's early days and will take time. I know where I live more stores don't support it than do. My local grocery stores, liquor stores, department stores, target, Walmart etc. none of them accept NFC based payments right now.
I think there are blatant examples of copying but I don't agree that everything is copying. Otherwise we could argue that Apple copied Android with widgets, 3rd party keyboards and extensibility in iOS 8 (all of which Android has before iOS did). Of course I think that's nonsense because the implementation and user experience is different. And that will be the same case here, ?Pay is simple and elegant and extremely user friendly. I doubt whatever Samsung does will be anything like that.
Billions? Based on what source? I'm not trying to argue ?Pay won't be successful as I think it will be huge. But it's early days and will take time. I know where I live more stores don't support it than do. My local grocery stores, liquor stores, department stores, target, Walmart etc. none of them accept NFC based payments right now.
Based on the MasterCard and Visa. The deadline to switch to non-swiped card readers is less than a year away. Any new point of sale system will support NFC and Apple Pay. The retailers and banks that Apple has already worked with have probably spent collective billions to upgrade terminals and infrastructure. The other 95% of remaining retailers will gladly spend billions more otherwise they will be on the hook for fraud.
Based on the MasterCard and Visa. The deadline to switch to non-swiped card readers is less than a year away. Any new point of sale system will support NFC and Apple Pay. The retailers and banks that Apple has already worked with have probably spent collective billions to upgrade terminals and infrastructure. The other 95% of remaining retailers will gladly spend billions more otherwise they will be on the hook for fraud.
I think you've pointed out the key: the card issuers who no longer will subsidize fraud and are going to wield a big stick at the merchants. There'll be transition for the time it will take to turn over the established user base of swipe cards but once the card issuers replace all the cards with ones that can't be swiped, even on hardware that has a swipe slot that will be disabled and that payment option eliminated. Merchants just aren't going to absorb the fraud.
I live in Canada, where chip and pin terminals have been around for years ... I have never seen a terminal without a magnetic strip reader. Seriously, not one. ... The new readers will just have three options (strip reader on the top/side, chip insert ant the bottom/top, and tap/nfc on the top or behind the screen).
I don't think LoopPay will take off, but lack of mag strip readers won't be the reason for it.
This. New terminals is not the same as "no mag strip reader".
This. New terminals is not the same as "no mag strip reader".
In Eu, there is places (mostly supermarkets) where only EMV cards are accepted now. Of course EU banks have not distributed swipe cards since 10 years or so.
Australia has forbidden swipe transactions last year
The first chart is a joke. As soon as retailers switch to chip and pin, LoopPay will cease to work and the percentages will be inverted because every chip and pin - enabled reader that has come out in the last two years is NFC-enabled.
So Samsung once again bets on the wrong horse in their pursuit to out-Apple Apple.
Couldn't agree more. And as far as LoopPap goes, the systems that have those "just hold your card near it" stickers are out there. They had them at a couple local fast food places were someone took them and about 6-8 months after that I haven't seen any. I think the millions of LoopPay out there compared to the hundreds of thousands of Apple Pay enabled systems (if MCX/CurrentC had not threatened their partners) is a farce unless you really count the nonfunctional and stolen ones.
So LoopPay requires special hardware (dongle) to inject a facsimile of a magnetic card swipe signal wirelessly. Interesting concept for greatest compatibility, but unless there's some serious security measures going on behind the scenes, someone can sniff this signal from afar. Looks like Samsung is going for widespread adoption in a bid to catch up to the industry.
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/09/virtual-wallet-review-apple-pay-google-wallet-softcard-and-loop-wallet/index.htm
There can't be ANY security measures going on here. What they're doing is transmitting an electromagnetic signal from the phone directly into the mag stripe read head, therefore in order for the reader to "think" it just scanned a card, the signal must carry the mag stripe info exactly as it is on the card. And it's on the card in a totally insecure way. Also, this means that the phone must store all the mag stripe info in its memory (now THAT is probably encrypted... but how well?). There is no Secure Enclave in an Android phone like there is in an iPhone, so I wouldn't be surprised that this stored CC info is just there for the taking with little effort. Same applies to the fingerprint data stored on the Android phone.
I'll go pop some popcorn and watch this one play out. Should be interesting.
I believe Apple will deliver something within about a year, that will make retailers more than happy. But they will do it right by still protecting the users' data. No doubt there will be value cards, vouchers and loyalty discounts. I guess these things would be opt-in and based on passbook. So if Apple is working on this, and I strongly believe so, this might be a tentpole feature for iOS 9. And this would suck the air out of all these other mobile paying systems that are merely catching up.
Agree. Apple likes to line up tent pole features, and this is a good candidate. This again would be a win for consumers, a win for merchants (getting more on board), and drive further adoption of mobile commerce. Right now, Apple is providing two key features with ?Pay - convenience (for those without NFC cards), and most importantly, security (biometric/token/secure storage - the most secure payment solution to date). A huge additional benefit waiting to be tapped is bringing loyalty cards, gift cards, etc. into the Apply Pay solution. It is simply physically challenging to carry all of the loyalty and specialty credit cards that consumers want to carry to get their rewards/discounts. My wife's wallet has about 12 cards in it! Even though I could be getting points for our accounts, I don't want to carry those cards in my wallet. If the cards were virtual, part of Passbook and usable with Apple Pay, it would happen (almost) automatically.
No matter what Samsung does for mobile payments, it is hard to see them getting much traction, as it would be competing with Google Wallet (most brand recognition in the Android space). What is Samsung going to bring to the table that entices the banks & card networks?
Australia has forbidden swipe transactions last year
No we haven't.
We got rid of signature based transactions in August, our terminals still have the magnetic strip reader and we get the odd non-Australian credit card transaction where a signature is still required.
I'm on my fourth card for one of my accounts because the chips keep failing, the latest card has a different design, maybe this card will last longer.
I've never seen anyone pay with a phone, despite a few of our banks jumping on board with Samsung, Apple Pay doesn't work here yet.
Not so sure about that. These changes can happen pretty quick. They have at least in western Europe.
I'm glad you brought that up ... chip & pin is not being used in every country around the world. I would bet half the reason magnetic stipe readers still exist in Europe along side chip&pin is in no small part because of the US, and other countries. If a US tourist visits Europe, they won't be able to use their credit cards if there were no magnetic swipe. Even if the change in the US happens quickly, unless the entire world switches within a year of the US, there is still going to be a need for magnetic swipe for credit cards issued outside of the US. So it's very unlikely that that new card readers would eliminate the swipe option for at least the next few years. And I'm not convinced gift cards would ever go to the expense to use chip & pin, it's just an unnecessary level of security for a one-time use card.
OK, so they're trying to show they're better than Apple because it doesn't need the vendor to update their equipment (which they're going to have to do soon enough, anyway). Instant access to all terminals. But, how well is it going to work? What are the tolerances on how you point it at the terminal? How many people are going to spend five minutes trying to find the sweet spot for the thing to work?
Don't get me wrong, I think being able to spoof a card swipe with a magnetic field is a great idea, I just don't see this as being a good use of it.
Come to think of it, I can't think of many "good" uses for it that could be classed as legal.