While Apple Pay awareness is high, declining use may indicate consumer security reservations. eConsumerServices offers solution for mobile payment reservations.
(Tampa Bay, FL) March 1, 2016 – Consumer awareness levels of Apple Pay’s “mobile wallet” are high, but actual use is dropping, down two points to 20 percent according to a consumer survey on mobile payments in the U.S., conducted by First Annapolis Consulting released earlier in February. Of the 580 iPhone 6 users that were polled in December 2015, only a reported fifteen percent used Apple Pay more than once indicating a leveling off of consumer interest since its launch in October 2014. (1)
Gary Cardone, CEO of dispute mitigation (http://econsumerservices.com/) company eConsumerServices (http://econsumerservices.com/) warns that any new payment technology or process takes a while to catch on. “The important thing is to use your own judgement as to when and where you use Apple Pay,” he said. “Apple Pay is a tremendous convenience and adds yet another level of versatility to the smart phone. But right now, the simple EMV ‘chip and pin’ system is the most secure way to make card-present payments.”
The U.S. has been slow to adopt the infrastructure and procedures necessary for new credit card technology. The process of merchants shifting to all-EMV transactions is expected to take up to three years. A 90% use threshold is not expected until some time in 2017. (2)
While Apple Pay is a fresh approach and may eventually prove to have long technology legs that usher in a higher level of functional convenience, it nevertheless has to contend with merchants still busy implementing the new EMV-secure credit cards.
The reality is that new EMV-system credit cards are the most secure method of payment so far. With EMV, buying patterns and spending habits are analyzed in a split second in order to detect suspicious activity. Fraud is a behavior that presents as inconsistencies in buying patterns and EMV technology is designed to detect it.
Apple Pay will have to work closely with the electronic payment industry to make their “wallet” more useful to consumers and to achieve a higher level of security. It isn’t a weakness in the Apple Pay mobile transactions protocol. Stolen credit cards can be entered into an iPhone and then used without any personal identification being captured. As well, a standard credit card requires no battery charge, no operating system and can get wet or dropped without losing its functions.
It is a myth that using Apple Pay eliminates chargeback or fraud. Until there is a database validating every single cardholders fingerprint and digital identity, the EMV chip and pin is the most secure bet. It is not just a transaction, it is a communication of past history, analyzing buying patterns and spending habits to detect suspicious activity – all in about a millisecond.
Cardone recommends seeking out the help of a third party mediator. Cardone also encourages consumers to remain vigilant with guarding their credit card information in order to lessen their chances of needing to initiate a chargeback in the first place.
About Global Risk Technologies and eConsumerServices:
Global Risk Technologies is most known for its role in payment processing solutions that cater to each side of the value chain: Chargebacks911.com and eConsumerServices.com. The firm is headquartered in Tampa Bay, Florida, with offices in Ireland and Atlanta. They have approximately 350 employees worldwide, and currently manage over 150MM in transactions each month, with clients located in the U.S. and Europe.
eConsumerServices focuses on the cardholder or consumer in order to encourage transactional resolution before it progresses to a chargeback. The company caters to the B2C (business-to-consumer) sector of Global’s initiative, in working to realize greater standardization and increased efficiency within the payments industry. eConsumerServices is an online mediation service that works to effectively and efficiently resolve transaction issues between merchants, consumers and banks. For more information, visit www.eConsumerServices.com.
