Apple Pay

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What Does Apple Pay Mean?

Apple Pay is a mobile payment service from Apple, Inc., that is available on Apple 6 iPhones and smartwatch devices. Apple Pay provides an innovative contactless payment system that allows buyers to make purchases just by swiping their device in the vicinity of a cashier’s kiosk.

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Apple Pay is sometimes informally referred to as iPay.

Techopedia Explains Apple Pay

Some types of contactless systems have been around for a while; for example, in highway toll payments, the “Easy Pay” card is an example of a system that does not require the traditional credit or debit card swipe entry and security features. However, the reason that toll booth operators can offer this technology is by distributing prepaid cards.

Now, Apple is offering a built-in technology in its devices that allows users to circumvent the commonly traditional process of swiping a credit or debit card, signing a piece of paper or entering a pin code for transaction integrity.

Apple Pay is not yet operational with all banks, and it is still in its nascent stage. But it does point to a growing trend in buying technology, which could mean that the traditional credit and debit cards may get phased out over time.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.