QR Codes has gotten a lot of hype in Japan, partly because merchants want to capture Chinese tourist money with AliPay and WeChat Pay, but also because the lower cost of QR payment systems appeals to small merchants who don’t want to buy or rent expensive NFC enabled POS systems.
Inexpensive NFC tags and NFC stickers are a logical payment alternative to full blown NFC POS systems and QR, but have remained out of the mainstream. NFC tags are great technology but they remain deeply geeky for the majority of users. The key is making NFC tags as friendly, easy and secure to use as Apple Pay. This is exactly what Apple plans to do.
At the TRANSACT 2019 conference Jennifer Bailey announced NFC tag Apple Pay. NFC tag Apple Pay works with or without apps. All the user does is tap a NFC tag and Apple Pay takes care of the rest as shown in the demo video using a SmartPlate NFC tag:
The easiest way to think of it is that instead of tapping a reader to pay with Apple Pay, NFC tag Apple Pay turns your iPhone into the reader. An NFC tag and iPhone is all that you need to Apple Pay at a store.
What does this sound like to you? Yep, this is exactly what QR Codes do and NFC tag Apple Pay is aimed right at the ‘but the store doesn’t need an expensive NFC reader to use QR’ sweet spot that QR Codes have occupied up to now. NFC tag Apple Pay levels the play field, neatly eliminating the QR advantage while offering security that QR Codes cannot match.
However don’t assume that the QR players are chained to QR Codes, it’s an inexpensive and convenient technology for building payment system app services, not particularly sacred. NFC tag Apple Pay also works in an app and this offers Japanese QR Code payment systems such as Line, PayPay, etc., a way to incorporate Apple Pay NFC support in their app, if they choose to do so.
A12 Bionic iPhone XR/XS are the only devices that support background NCF tag reading and the native ability to read tags without an app. The big question in my mind is how Apple plans to implement NFC tag Apple Pay on non-A12 Bionic iPhones.
More NFC tag coverage on NFC Tag Apple Pay and the Japan Softcream Cashless Index
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