payments

Read Cult of Mac’s latest posts on payments:

Apple Pay is soon coming to 16 new markets

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Apple Pay Terminal
¡Es inminente!
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Apple Pay is on its way to 16 new markets, according to one mobile banking service.

Apple plans to increase the total number of supported countries to 40 by the end of 2019. Here’s the full list of territories that are next in line for its mobile payments service.

Square finally updates its card reader for Lightning era

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Square just got a Lightning update.
Photo: Square

Square, the payments company that makes it easy for small businesses to accept credit card payments wherever you go, is finally catching up with the times today by updating its tiny card reader.

Starting today, customers can now get a Square Card reader that connects via Lightning port instead of the traditional 3.5mm audio jack that Apple is trying to hard to kill.

WhatsApp takes on Apple Pay Cash with peer-to-peer payments

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WhatsApp on iPhone
Don’t ignore the latest WhatsApp releases.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

WhatsApp plans to take on Apple Pay Cash with a peer-to-peer payments system of its own.

Powered by UPI, the service is expected to rollout to users as early as next week following a beta test. It could launch with just three banking partners initially as WhatsApp races to compete with rival payments services.

Apple Pay’s next step? Peer-to-peer payments

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Apple in talks to bring Apple Pay to Israel
Apple in talks to bring Apple Pay to Israel
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Apple is again working to deliver its own Venmo competitor that will allow fans to transfer money to one another using their iPhones, according to a new report.

Multiple sources familiar with the company’s plans expect the service to be unveiled later this year.

Should Tim Cook apologize for the Fappening at today’s iPhone 6 event?

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Photo: Apple.
Photo: Apple.

Apple is widely rumored to unveil a new NFC-based mobile payments service tied into the iPhone and iWatch later today.

But there’s a problem. In the aftermath of the Fappening, the massive iCloud breach that leaked nude and pornographic images of Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton and more, it’s bad timing. Apple’s name is synonymous in the news with security breaches right now. People may not want to trust the company with their financial data if Apple can’t even protect the nudes of celebrities.

So maybe Apple shouldn’t push payments during today’s big event. Or at least not at first. Maybe Tim Cook should apologize instead.

iPhone 6 gets NFC, faster LTE, and Apple wins an Emmy on The CultCast

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This week on the Cultiest of Casts: Steve Ballmer lands the perfect job; NFC and your iPhone make credit cards obsolete; iPhone 6 gets even faster data access; new photos give us our best look yet at a 4.7-inch iPhone 6; Apple wins their first Emmy; APPL stock hits an all-time high; and, behold, Podcasting turns 10! Oh, and it’s growing like crazy, too.

Snicker your way through each week’s best Apple stories! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the chuckles begin.

Our thanks to Lynda.com for sponsoring this episode! Learn virtually any application at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials at Lynda.com.

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Click on for the show notes.

Incipio Cashwrap

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In Germany, bank cards come with NFC chips that let you make small payments just by tapping your wallet onto the POS machine. You pre-load the chip with money from your bank account (only small amounts are allowed, because if you lose the card you lose the money) and spend it as cash.

So I finally see the point of NFC in a phone. And now I can have NFC in my iPhone, thanks to Incipio’s Cashwrap case.

ZooZ Offers A Simpler In-app Payment System For Your Apps

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A new Israeli start-up on the scene named ZooZ has founded a new SDK, which allows developers to implement an in-app payment system into their apps easier. To get the system implemented, all developers have to do is add three lines of code into either an Android or iOS app, which will then get things rolling. From there, customers who would like to purchase something from within the app can use Paypal or a credit card with ZooZ’s system. Check it out:

USAePay Lets You Accept Credit Cards On Your iPhone, But It’s Not Pretty [Review]

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As a business owner, I love being able to take payments on my iPhone or iPad when I’m on the go — like at my booth during Seattle Comic Con. That’s one of the reason’s I’m a big Square fan. But while Square has a beautiful design and makes taking credit card payments a snap, it lacks a lot of features real businesses need.

Enter USAePay, which, like Square, also offers iPhone and iPad-compatible credit card readers. But together with their iOS app, USAePay provides many features Square doesn’t. And it’s for that reason, I decided to take USAePay for a spin; here’s what I found.

PayPal Brings A Triangle To A Square Fight, Unveils New “Here” Mobile Payment System

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Paypal has finally made it into the mobile payment market after being beat to the punch by the likes of Square and Intuit. PayPal may be late to the party but they have a more recognizable name in the world of payment systems and that may just be enough to push them to the front of the line. Besides their name, they’re also offering merchants a 2.7% flat rate on transactions versus the 2.75% offered by Square. PayPal didn’t stop there either, launching a full on geometrical attack by choosing a triangle as the shape of choice for their card reader dongle.

Could Google Wallet Be Coming To iOS?

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Experts at the Intrepidus Mobile Security Group came across some interesting parsers definitions within Google Wallet’s source code that could hint at a possible iOS release. How Google actually plans on getting Google Wallet to work on a non-NFC/SE iOS device is another story, but for now, let’s take a look at the iOS definitions found by Intrepidus.

Square Wants To Replace Cash Registers With iPads

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Square, the iOS credit-card company, wants to replace lame old cash registers with sleek iPads sporting its little square white credit card-reading dongle. The new Square Register app for iPad aims to do just that.