Free Republic

Apple on Monday launched its Apple Card savings account with a 4.15% annual percentage yield. It requires no minimum deposit or balance...once a user sets up a savings account, all of the Daily Cash that is earned from then on will automatically be deposited there...Daily Cash is the Apple Card reward program that offers up to 3% back on purchases.

Vulnerabilities in Apple Pay and Visa could enable hackers to bypass an iPhone's Apple Pay lock screen and perform contactless payments, according to research by the University of Birmingham and University of Surrey. Experts in the University of Birmingham's School of Computer Science and the University of Surrey's Department of Computer Science found their approach could also be used to bypass the contactless limit allowing transactions of any amount to be performed. Their results will be presented in a paper at the 2022 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy. The researchers discovered the vulnerability occurs when Visa cards are set...

Last week we saw bitcoin, the great hope of cryptocurrency, skyrocket to over $13,000. It was in the vicinity of $3,200 as recently as December. Why? Maybe it was Facebook’s new venture into creating its own digital currency, Libra — although, if that were to be successful, how it would offer any type of validation of bitcoin is beyond me, and a whole lot of smart people on Wall Street. In fact, it might spell the beginning of the end for bitcoin. There are almost no major Wall Street investors of substance with meaningful track records who have invested in...

What if the finance industry — credit card companies like Visa, Mastercard and American Express; credit card processors like First Data; and banks like JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo — were to effectively set new rules for the sales of guns in America? Collectively, they have more leverage over the gun industry than any lawmaker. And it wouldn’t be hard for them to take a stand. PayPal, Square, Stripe and Apple Pay announced years ago that they would not allow their services to be used for the sale of firearms.

This Android phone maker's mobile payments service continues to lag Apple's own. Along with the launch of its iPhone 6/6 Plus phones, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) introduced its very own contactless mobile payment system known as Apple Pay. Unsurprisingly, with the launch of its own Galaxy S6 smartphones, Apple rival Samsung (NASDAQOTH:SSNLF) released its own, very creatively named mobile payment system known as Samsung Pay.Also, it would seem that Apple Pay is utterly crushing Samsung Pay.Billions vs. just hundreds of millionsSamsung recently bragged that its Samsung Pay service is now up to 5 million users and they have spent "over $500 million"...

Walmart and a host of other retailers are trying to make inroads in the mobile payments marketplace. And they're failing. One of the most interesting, least talked about wars in tech is turning into a rout. Ever since Apple launched Apple Pay last year, the iPhone maker has been waging battle against an unexpected competitor: Walmart. And America’s largest retailer is losing badly. A quick recap on the story so far: Walmart has spent years fighting for lower “interchange fees,” the 1% to 3% charge that retailers pay to card-issuing banks on every credit-card transaction the retailers process. Those fees...

It didn’t take long for fraud to find its way to Apple Pay. Some banks are witnessing a growing incidence of fraud on Apple Inc.’s mobile-payment service as criminals exploit vulnerabilities ...... The problem was brought to light in late February ..by Cherian Abraham, ..... He said fraud “is growing like a weed, and the bank is unable to tell friend from foe.”Mr. Abraham said it isn’t “an anomaly” for fraud to account for about 6% of Apple Pay transactions, compared with about 0.1% on transactions that involve swiping a credit card.Banks pay Apple 0.15% of every transaction made on...

A Missouri lawmaker is pushing a measure that would require identification each time a person uses Apple Pay with their iPhone or other mobile payment systems on their non-Apple phones. “Democratic Rep. Joshua Peters of St. Louis says the bill he introduced Wednesday requires customers to show a state driver’s license or other identification when they use a mobile wallet app or other electronic payment system... ... “Merchants would have to record the license or identification number or could be responsible for the illegal purchases made if a device is reported stolen.”

At 1:40, demonstrates using an iPhone to bypass a fast-food cashier entirely: open app, recognizes you're at a restaurant, shows the menu, you pick what you want, tap "Pay", authorize with fingerprint on phone, go to food pickup window.