Apple Pay helps NFC make a comeback to stir mobile payments

At 5 o'clock on the morning of February 18, Apple Pay (Apple Payment) officially launched, Apple's official website announced that the first batch of cooperative banks a total of 19, including five major banks, Pudong, China Merchants Bank and other 10 stocks, as well as Bank of Beijing, Shanghai Bank, etc. For 4 city commercial banks, Apple Pay will support the debit and credit cards it issues.

Apple Pay is an NFC-based mobile payment function released by Apple in the fall 2014 new product launch. It was officially launched in the US on October 20, 2014. China is the fifth country in its layout.

As early as December last year, UnionPay announced a partnership with Apple Pay and Samsung Pay. Apple Pay will connect to UnionPay's cloud flash payment system, through the NFC antenna design, as long as the iPhone is close to the POS terminal that supports UnionPay cloud flash, and put the finger on the Touch ID to complete the payment.

In addition, 21st Century Business Herald reporter learned that at the POS end, in addition to UnionPay's flash POS machine, fast money and other third-party payment agencies also indicated that they are ready to support Apple Pay.

NFC payment recovery

At present, the mobile payment field mainly includes three modes of NFC payment, scan code payment and card machine payment. Scanning code payment is a rising star compared to NFC, but it has quickly rushed to the mobile payment market in recent years.

An insider of UnionPay believes that the initial slow development of NFC is mainly due to the large number of participants involved, including banks, UnionPay, mobile communication companies, mobile phone manufacturers, etc. Each party hopes that the rules of the game will be more beneficial to themselves, and it is difficult to balance each other in the game. Party interest. In addition, compared with scan code payment, NFC payment requires higher acceptance carrier, mobile device and POS terminal supporting NFC function are higher cost, and the threshold and equipment cost of scan code payment are both low and easier to promote. Moreover, Apple's mobile phone has not been able to open NFC before, and all NFC payments are based on Android, which has lost about 20%-30% of users.

As early as the application pay into China, the domestic NFC payment has undergone a revolution. Unlike NFC's first launch, the Android system introduced the HCE (Host Card Emulation) function, which freed the shackles of integrating NFC signal transceivers into SIM cards. The situation of multiple participant games was solved to some extent. UnionPay cloud flash payment is a mobile payment product based on NFC-HCE technology. In addition to UnionPay, some banks such as China Merchants Bank have also launched products based on this technology.

NFC payment does not need to rely on the APP or open the mobile phone, only the mobile phone is close to the POS machine with the flash payment function, the mobile phone is automatically lit, and the password can be completed to complete the payment, which is shorter than the scan code payment. But at that time Apple has not yet opened NFC payments, this feature is limited to Android phones.

Many third-party payments also support the voice. Suning Finance said that Suning Yifubao, as a third-party payment institution, needs to strengthen cooperation with new technology vendors such as NFC in the future. At present, Suning Yifubao has signed a cooperation agreement with Samsung Pay for the store in Suning.

Quick money also said that you are ready to support Apple Pay on the fast money POS terminal.

Alipay claims that merchants’ demand for payment services is no longer limited to payments. Based on the Internet, services such as affiliate marketing and data-based operations derived from payments have begun to contribute more and more value to merchants. Alipay will rely on this, using the Internet, big data, and back to offline business.

Mobile payment ecology may change

After Apple Pay was opened, there was a voice in the market that the mobile payment landscape might create a new ecology.

The data shows that there are more than 7 million POS terminals with non-contact payment capabilities nationwide. However, some insiders said that this figure is not a big part of the overall market.

A large third-party payer believes that Apple pay will not have a major impact on the current domestic mobile payment landscape.

He has four reasons: First, Apple's payment chain is too long, involving mobile phone manufacturers, issuers, acquirers, merchants, and UnionPay. The distribution of interests needs to be coordinated; secondly, the cost and time of hardware transformation are limited. The NFC equipment is equipped with large merchants, and there is no way to cover small and medium-sized merchants. Third, whether the merchants can accept the rates paid by Apple and the cost of machine reconstruction and construction are still to be observed. Even if they can accept, the offline merchants now The demand for mobile payment is no longer limited to the single function of cash register. They need to provide marketing support, such as user's behavioral consumption habits and geographic location. Fourth, Apple payment is limited to 6 and 6s on mobile phones. On behalf of the model, the user share is small.

There are also third-party payers who say that it is difficult for NFC to overtake, but Apple Pay’s entry will retain UnionPay’s right to speak in the mobile payment market, which will have a certain impact on the mobile payment industry, but the impact will be large, depending on the follow-up of UnionPay and the bank. Investment and market cultivation.