Why We Are Moving To All Contactless Payment Thanks To Apple Pay and Google Wallet

By Nathan Young on October 21, 2014

This week, Apple Pay launched, and it promises to change the way we pay for our things. For a while now, Google Wallet has been the only way you could pay through your phone with a “contactless payment.” But now, Apple Pay has introduced the same technology to pay for things Google Wallet has already been doing for a while now. Yes, I do have a Google Wallet account, and I have my bank card on the account, with a PIN number set up. Since I like my Android phones, I have to stick with Google Wallet. It’s just the phone I have now does not have NFC, or Near Field Communications.

Here in Alabama, I suspect most people are not using the NFC tags on their phones, and are still using a credit or debit card or cash to pay for their things. But, that will soon change, and here is why! With the news of more businesses having their credit card information hacked, businesses and the banks are rushing to roll out smart chip credit cards, that most of the world already has. Yes, having a smart chip credit card will make transactions much safer and secure, but I believe you will soon see mostly everything in your wallet transferred onto your phone.

Today, other than having Google Wallet and Apple Pay for pay for your things, several insurance companies now have apps where you can have your insurance information on it. Google Wallet has a way where you can put your loyalty cards on it. And yes, people are wanting states to make driver’s licenses a feature on your smart phone. When you pay for things by using your smart phone, a one time code is generated, and is never used again. This makes the hackers angry, because it makes it much, much harder to steal credit cart information.

And yes, we are moving closer to a mostly cashless society. With Google Wallet and PayPal, you can pay for mostly anything, and send money to people as well. Cash will soon be something small kids or people without phones will soon only be carrying, because small kids don’t need a smartphone, and some people choose to not have a phone. But, using Apple Pay or Google Wallet is taking a long time to catch on here in Alabama, and mostly because many people here don’t like using technology like this.

Places like McDonald’s takes NFC payments, but whenever I am at McDonald’s here in Alabama, I have never seen anyone use their phone to pay for things, mostly cash or cards here. But, I do believe we will soon see more people using Google Wallet or Apple Pay, because mostly everyone has a smartphone now! And people are getting tired of hearing more credit card information getting hacked or stolen. Some say moving back to cash is your safest option, but I would not carry a lot of cash on me, just in case something happens to my wallet.

Having everyone move to using their smart phones to pay for things is the smartest thing to do. For one, it makes your information much safer, and it would be nearly impossible for hackers to steal your information. Two, if your phone is lost or stolen, you can turn off Google Wallet and Apple Pay. And three, more and more places now have NFC technology installed, with much more coming! Moving towards an all smart phone paying society is what will happen with Google Wallet and Apple Pay, it’s the right thing to do!