In a recent interview with FastCompany, Ed McLaughlin, Chief of Emerging Payments at MasterCard, inadvertently confirms that Apple is indeed planning to enter the mobile payments business.
When asked to give an estimate for “when smartphone payments would become commonplace? ”, McLaughlin said the following:
“The timeline is always as rapid as it makes sense for consumers… that’s a combination of having a critical mass of the merchants, which is what you’re seeing right now, and getting devices into the hands of consumers. I don’t know of a handset manufacturer that isn’t in process of making sure their stuff is PayPass ready.”
So that would include Apple then? “Um, there are…like I say, [I don’t know of] any handset maker out there… when we have discussions with our partners, and they ask us not to disclose them, we don’t.”
For me, this means that the MasterCard Chief either hasn’t heard of the tech giant, Apple, or he has slipped up and given us all the confirmation we wanted. Personally, I would vouch for the latter.