Apple Pay VP Jennifer Bailey keen on cryptocurrency, iPhone as identification
Apple is exploring the possibility of working on a cryptocurrency-related project, the company's vice president for Apple Pay Jennifer Bailey has suggested amid a wide-ranging discussion on personal finances, but while there is potential to expand its monetary portfolio, a project announcement is unlikely to occur anytime in the near future.
Speaking at a CNN event in San Francisco last week, Bailey spoke about a variety of topics, including cryptocurrency and Apple Pay. While Apple does not currently have any public-facing services or features that rely on the digital currency, Bailey confirmed it was still of interest to the iPhone maker.
"We're watching cryptocurrency," Bailey said. "We think it's interesting. We think it has interesting long-term potential."
Apple has so far limited the exposure of cryptocurrencies to both itself and its users, including pulling fake cryptocurrency apps from the App Store as well as banning cryptocurrency mining apps altogether on iOS devices. The company isn't entirely blocking out cryptocurrencies from its products, as it does allow digital wallets in the App Store, as well as including Bitcoin glyphs as part of the Siri Shortcuts app.
A move into the space would also follow similar initiatives by other firms. Arguably the most famous project is Facebook's Libra, an initiative with backing by many major organizations that is expected to launch fully in 2020.
Elsewhere in the discussion, the relatively slow acceptance of Apple Pay in the United States was raised as a problem that is slowly improving. According to Bailey, contactless payment acceptance in stores has increased from 3% to 70% in the United States, behind the UK at about 85% and Australia at "around 99%."
While Bailey highlights how it is common for a wireless terminal to be brought to consumers in Europe for payment, the same is tipped to occur in the US in the future, but "it's still taking some time" according to the VP. The expense of adopting new payment systems is also a barrier for businesses in enabling contactless payments.
With Apple Pay and the introduction of Apple Card, the company is slowly taking over more and more functions usually performed by items carried in a wallet or purse. When asked what the hardest thing to replace in a wallet is, Bailey suggested the ability to prove an identity.
"Identity, to be legal, it has to be government, it has to be authenticated by the government," suggests Bailey. "We see, across the globe, many countries starting to use mobile to add a passport. You may use a mobile passport when you're going through airports today, and so it is moving and I think it will continue. So it's not too far away, it just won't be as fast as some of the other activities we have."
Apple has previously considered the possibility of using an iPhone as a form of identification, as seen in patent filings, with its onboard RFID potentially allowing it to offer similar capabilities as a passport and other official documents.
Germany is planning to take advantage of iOS 13's NFC stack so an iPhone could be used in place of physical identification cards and passports. Japan also intends to use an iPhone to serve as a resident's "My Number Card," enabling the government to streamline access to several social programs.
Speaking at a CNN event in San Francisco last week, Bailey spoke about a variety of topics, including cryptocurrency and Apple Pay. While Apple does not currently have any public-facing services or features that rely on the digital currency, Bailey confirmed it was still of interest to the iPhone maker.
"We're watching cryptocurrency," Bailey said. "We think it's interesting. We think it has interesting long-term potential."
Apple has so far limited the exposure of cryptocurrencies to both itself and its users, including pulling fake cryptocurrency apps from the App Store as well as banning cryptocurrency mining apps altogether on iOS devices. The company isn't entirely blocking out cryptocurrencies from its products, as it does allow digital wallets in the App Store, as well as including Bitcoin glyphs as part of the Siri Shortcuts app.
A move into the space would also follow similar initiatives by other firms. Arguably the most famous project is Facebook's Libra, an initiative with backing by many major organizations that is expected to launch fully in 2020.
Elsewhere in the discussion, the relatively slow acceptance of Apple Pay in the United States was raised as a problem that is slowly improving. According to Bailey, contactless payment acceptance in stores has increased from 3% to 70% in the United States, behind the UK at about 85% and Australia at "around 99%."
While Bailey highlights how it is common for a wireless terminal to be brought to consumers in Europe for payment, the same is tipped to occur in the US in the future, but "it's still taking some time" according to the VP. The expense of adopting new payment systems is also a barrier for businesses in enabling contactless payments.
With Apple Pay and the introduction of Apple Card, the company is slowly taking over more and more functions usually performed by items carried in a wallet or purse. When asked what the hardest thing to replace in a wallet is, Bailey suggested the ability to prove an identity.
"Identity, to be legal, it has to be government, it has to be authenticated by the government," suggests Bailey. "We see, across the globe, many countries starting to use mobile to add a passport. You may use a mobile passport when you're going through airports today, and so it is moving and I think it will continue. So it's not too far away, it just won't be as fast as some of the other activities we have."
Apple has previously considered the possibility of using an iPhone as a form of identification, as seen in patent filings, with its onboard RFID potentially allowing it to offer similar capabilities as a passport and other official documents.
Germany is planning to take advantage of iOS 13's NFC stack so an iPhone could be used in place of physical identification cards and passports. Japan also intends to use an iPhone to serve as a resident's "My Number Card," enabling the government to streamline access to several social programs.
Comments
And here I was thinking that there were like a dozen cryptocurrencies in existence. Man was I wrong!
https://coinmarketcap.com/all/views/all/
Coin mining takes the energy of a small city, yet they can only handle seven (7) transactions per second.
Cold fusion and cryptocurrencies are have a lot in common.
you won’t catch me using or owning any of that s***.
As for "worthless things", how is paper currency not worthless things? Again, it's not about the physical medium of the thing, it's the value it's the market value of the thing it represents. If people are willing to trade for special paper, it has value. If they're willing to trade for special numbers, it has value.
One place to learn: https://www.coindesk.com/
Apple providing a secure crypto wallet option in their Wallet app could be a good thing, but the thing that people get lazy about with their investments is they will keep their holdings in “secure accounts” on the Internet when they are not trading, which is a huge mistake. The people I know who have made a lot of money in crypto and who have been able to keep their holdings will use a very reliable exchange, like Gemini.com (US-based trading only), then download their crypto to a hardware wallet for secure storage offline. Never keep crypto in an online account, they are far too prone to hacking or theft. One can also use a printed wallet (which is not digital at all) or as I mentioned before, use a secure wallet like Trezor and store it in a very safe location. Crypto is like digital cash, so you have to treat it like cash. Good practices are storing wallets or hard drives used for trading in an air-gapped setting (no possibility of remote access) and/or in a safe.
Now, if Apple were to implement a hardware-based crypto wallet in the iPhone, that would be a great thing BUT if your phone were to be stolen or broken and become unusable, you’d be at extreme risk of losing your entire investment.
Even further, the solution must “scale down” so that every grocery store clerk or nightclub bouncer can easily validate ID with commodity hardware ... otherwise, we’ll still have to carry physical ID just-in-case XYZ location doesn’t support digital ID (much like Apple Pay and still needing to carry a physical card).
Definitely a non-trivial problem. IMO Apple could provide strong technical vision to governments as to how it might work, but it looks like they might be waiting it out a little longer.
The other troublesome issue with cryptocurrency is that its primary use seems to be terrorist states, extortionists, black market deals and other criminal enterprises.
Your comment about paper currency being worthless is the falsehood that I hear a lot from promoters of cryptocurrencies. Yes the Dollar, the Pound, the Yen ARE different. They are different in a fundamental way. They have a Central Banker, a head of the Federal Reserve, A Finance Minister, whole departments in fact who's job is to maintain the value of the currency. It is supported because the people in government don't want to see harm come to their countries economies. Why do you think the Zimbabwean dollar collapsed in value? Because nobody was minding the store. Why do you think China is continually accused of manipulating their currency? Because that's what governments do. The US dollar is the medium of common exchange so all the major countries seek to maintain its value. That is why real currencies put out by real major countries are different. They have real value because people work very hard to maintain and stabilize their value.
Cryptocurrencies are worth nothing. They are worth only what some sucker is willing to pay for it. There is a term in finance "a flight to quality" it happens whenever there is a major crisis internationally, a war, a disaster, a major financial collapse. People dump their risky, unsupported investments for something real, real gold, real silver, real Dollars, real Pounds, real Yen. The next time there is a major crisis you will see the value of Bitcoin and all the rest collapse to pennies because there is NOTHING to back them up. Nobody is minding the store.
I know how cryptocurrencies work. I was aware of them from shortly after Bitcoin came out. Bryan over at The Mac Observer has been very enthusiastic on them from the start and ran a number of articles about how they work. I did a lot of independent reading about them early on. The difference is I can smell fraud a mile off. And that's all they are, a way to get suckers to invest real money in nothing so the founders can profit before the bubble bursts. The current "Market Cap" is really meaningless. It's just whatever people have been willing to pay for these imaginary things. I suppose I could start selling jars with invisible wish giving fairies in them. It would be on a par with Cryptocurrencies.
I won't touch cryptocurrencies with a ten mile pole. In ten or fifteen years people will laugh at this idiocy.
The U.S. dollar is the world's base currency and used to be backed by gold. Now it is backed by the "full faith and credit" of the U.S. But, as our debt grows at a Trillion dollars a year to unsustainable levels, our politicians continue to threaten default in various forms and the economy is stimulated by printing money and ZIRP (which makes the future value of money worthless), that all is threatened.
There is ongoing talk on what the global economy should use to replace the U.S. dollar -- and cryptocurrency is one of the options.
But, I stay away from both because the worth of both is, like stocks or art, based on what people are willing to pay for it.
At one time in my life gold went for $32 an ounce. Now it's around $1,500. But the question is: "Why the increase?" Is gold more valuable or the dollar less valuable?