Will the new iPhone speed the rise of a 'cashless' society

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
8/30/2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Sneak previews of new iPhone suggests it has chip to facilitate credit, debit purchases

There are some analysts that say that the ribbons spotted at the top of this iPhone prototype point to an "NFC" chip inside, which expedites purchases at the cash register. Users with this device can merely swipe the phone, which is connected to either a debit or credit card.

Other phones already have an in-built NFC. Google has made a big play for the market with its 'Wallet' accounts in the United States.

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LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The next iPhone, believed to launch in as soon as two weeks time, is expected to come with the built-in chip to assist in small payments.

The NFC chip is seen as the successor to the chip-and-pin, acting as a small, no-contact card which can be waved against scanners at cash registers to initiate a payment. Debit cards already have this feature installed, and certain retailers such as Pret a Manger already use the technology.

Other phones already have an in-built NFC. Google has made a big play for the market with its "Wallet" accounts in the United States.

Apple will need to embrace a technology before it sees widespread adoption among the public, and it could take an "iWallet" feature to bring a new payment system to the public.

9to5Mac, which has sources within Apple, has found references to NFC code within iPhone prototypes, and they have spotted "NFC connectors" within purported images of the phone's hardware.

9to5 speculates that "Apple could tie in with a payment processor like Citibank's PayPass system for credit card transactions - or it could become a payment processor of sorts with its hundreds of millions of credit cards already on file at iTunes."

NFC can also instantly transfer documents or images between phones simply by tapping them together, as demonstrated by rival Samsung's "Beam" feature on the recent Galaxy 3.

Other iPhone news includes a flat-screen maker LG Display announcing production of screens expected to be for the new phone and images showing the notorious new "dock connector," which is a stripped-down version of the power and data port seen on previous generations of iPhones and iPads.

The "NFC" chip is believed to be located on the top left of the phone, underneath the sticker in the left image, and the image on the right shows the "NFC cables" in close-up.

� 2012, Catholic Online. Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.

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Keywords: iPhone 5, NFC, iWallet, Apple

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1 - 3 of 3 Comments

John Candido
8 months ago
There is no stopping the evolution to a cashless society. It will be a convergence of the internet, credit and debit cards that have Visa PayWave, MasterCard PayPass, and American Express cards that have ExpressPay. Smart phones will be used in much the same way as a credit or debit card with PayWave, PayPass, or ExpressPay.

Our smart phones will contain every debit or credit card we own, as well as all of our discount vouchers and receipts in digital form. There will not be any need to carry any more receipts in our wallets. Google will produce a Google wallet, Visa will have an e-wallet, MasterCard, Square, and PayPass will all offer a similar product. These developments will eventually consign cash to history.

I don’t think that plastic cards will be eliminated in future. When a power blackout or some other inevitable technical issue occurs, plastic cards can be imprinted mechanically with paper, or you can place barcodes on all plastic cards that are read by a barcode reader that is powered by some other means.

As long as there is a national regime of privacy legislation and the security and integrity of the internet is assured, powerful institutions such as state and federal governments will obtain taxes in full in future. This will help to fund our treasury and help to pay for community infrastructure, the operation of governments, and funding for all future policy developments.
In addition, governments will not have to bear the cost of printing, manufacturing, storing, and transporting cash, which is called cash’s seigniorage. Seigniorage will become increasingly expensive for governments. The seigniorage of cash will be a problem for governments around the world which herald another reason to become cashless.

We will have a de facto cashless society first, where a majority of transactions will be done without cash, both in numbers of transactions and in the quantity of money involved. We will probably have a de facto cashless society in about 5 years. After a further 30 to 40 years, or somewhere thereabouts, cash will be eliminated from our economy after the nation has had a plethora of free and wide-ranging debates about this issue.

It will be convenient not to have to ask for and carry any more paper receipts or physical discount vouchers, because they will be emailed to our mobile phones and personal computers. How incredible, powerful, and efficient will both Visa's, Google's, Square’s and PayPass’s virtual wallets be, once they become commonplace?

A cashless society is in every bank’s financial interest that will have everything to gain from such a society. A society without cash will engender all banks and businesses to operate more safely and enjoy lower cost overheads. Banks and most businesses will increasingly want a cashless society because it will substantially lower their costs, by not having to deal with cash on a daily basis. There will not be any need to count, store, or transport cash ever again.

The banking system will play an important role in the development of a cashless society through real-time or instantaneous transactions. In the near future, transactions between all banks, banks and retail points, banks and all their customers, between all businesses, and between individuals, will be real-time or instantaneous. Bank technology will evolve from the ‘batch’ system of computer mainframes that records transactions on tape reels, which are collected and updated overnight on a daily basis, to instantaneous real-time transactions via an infrastructure of high speed national broadband based on optic fibre, which travels to every street, business, and home.

Police and intelligence agencies will advocate a cashless society in order to limit or prevent crimes associated with cash. Cash always provides criminal anonymity as in the drug trade, terrorism, burglaries, organised crime, illegal gun running, and cash thefts. The crime of counterfeiting money will be completely eliminated. The black economy is based on the criminal anonymity that cash allows. This will dissipate when cash is removed. Any virtual currency service that has anonymity in its transactions should be regulated so as to remove any anonymity whilst maintaining the same level of privacy found in mainstream cashless transactions.

A cashless society is one where greenhouse gasses are kept to a minimum. A society with cash is one that is embedded to a polluting infrastructure. The manufacture of cash requires the transportation and use of raw materials in manufacturing processes, with the final product transported to financial institutions. Apart from the obvious risk to society from criminals, the transport of cash in security vans leads to greater air pollution in our communities. This is not counting people who desire to make either a deposit or withdrawal from their accounts throughout the nation on a daily basis.

A cashless society does not have to be the policy of any political party or government instrumentality. It does not have to be something that is forced on any nation that is not broadly accepting and ready for it. It should only be achieved after a plethora of wide-ranging national debate. It will broadly come of its own accord through technological development. The public will increasingly demand its security, integrity, and its many conveniences such as reduced queuing time for payments using payWave, PayPass, or ExpressPay, with a card or mobile phone.

Not only will a cashless society make paying at any retail point a quicker process, it will also make payment cues either shorter in length or non-existent. RFID, which stands for ‘Radio Frequency Identification’, will eliminate cues altogether. RFID will be adopted by supermarket chains in future. All that a customer has to do is to load up their trolley with what they want to purchase, and simply walk out to their car without going through any checkout process involving staff. RFID will accurately note what has been taken out of store by a specific customer, tally each item, charge the goods to the customer, and email a receipt to the customer’s mobile phone or computer.

A cashless society will be evolutionary, convenient, and unstoppable. In combination, all of these factors will prove irresistible for most if not all modern economies. They will prove fatal for the continued existence of cash, the more we move forward in time. A cashless society will provide a plethora of social and economic advantages, relative to a society that maintains cash.
Eugene Tighe
8 months ago
I don't believe that Apple collects any "secret" information. I embrace all things Apple. I avoid all things Obama.
Harold Olsen
8 months ago
I like the idea of not having to carry cash and seldom do any more. I use either my debit or credit card when making purchases. I'm hoping this feature on the iPhone will come out on other Smart Phones because, ever since I read a year or so back that Apple was secretly collecting personal information from their customers who have iPhones, iPads, etc,. I've avoided all things Apple.

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