After more than ten years testing payment methods in the credit card market I was surprised by the lack of innovation in Apple Pay. Since my company owns the whole stack (terminals, gateway, processing, accounts) I was able to test various methods of payment during those years, including one similar as the one Apple introduced this week. Let me show you how Apple Pay and NFC are obsolete and unnecessary solutions.

Apple Pay is a product of linear thinking and a work of a stable. Their solution is pretty much a standard NFC payment method with a somewhat clunky mechanism involving taking pictures of magnetic cards. The problem is NFC is obsolete, it's been around for almost a decade and it is still struggling to be mainstream. It removes a few steps by adding the cost of new hardware, software and security measures. Which is ok, but it's not really innovative. It's just the same thing as a regular card except you don't touch a reader. But if NFC is obsolete what is a really innovative way to pay? Pretty much like that:

Taking a cab in 2016:

You open Uber, ask for a driverless cab. Sometime during the ride the car tells you the ride costs $ 15.00 and asks for a payment. As you tap into 'My Wallet', the screen tells you 'You are inside Lyft #412, the ride cost $ 15.00, how do you want to pay?  Lyft accepts credit, checking, e-currency.'  You tap the method you want and the car says 'Thank for you payment, have a nice day'. That's it.

Paying department stores in 2016:

You enter the store, grab your 50th pair of  jeans. You head to a cashier (automated or not), the cashier tells you the purchase would be $100.00. You tap into your wallet and it says 'You are in Forever 33, 88th street' you type the amount of payment or the cashier number and that's it.

And that's how we will pay for things in the future. Your wallet will not be owned by a single company, you will be able to use e-currency, your checking account or banking credit. Credit cards will not really exist in the form they do today. The implementation of a system like that is simple and the tools are already available. 

Hope you had fun, say hi to me on twitter: @eduardordm