My Way News - Apple pushes digital wallet with Apple Pay
My Way News reports: "The technology company on Tuesday introduced a new digital wallet service called Apple Pay that is integrated with its Passbook credential-storage app and its fingerprint ID security system. [...] So-called mobile proximity payments are expected to grow exponentially over the next few years. [...] Apple said department stores like Macy's and Bloomingdales, drugstores including Walgreen's and Duane Reade, and other stores including McDonald's, Staples, Subway and Whole Foods are participating in Apple Pay."

Comment: It will be interesting to see if this becomes a popular method of payment or merely a novelty for trendy urban hipsters. It could certainly be an important milestone on the way to a cashless society. One important thing to note, for our purposes, it's just a domestic product, U.S. only, not an international product. That could change, of course, and I'm sure Apple would love that. Critics would probably point out that that consumers in Asia (particularly Japan and South Korea) have been paying with their phones for quite some time, so you could say the U.S. is finally catching up. Still, there is no global standard for NFC and mobile payments and that's really what we are looking for.