Will your next political donation be processed by Apple?
All indicators are pointing towards Apple going live with a mobile payment solution, possibly even be before the end of this year.
A recent patent filing by Apple describes a backend payment processing system to support mobile wallet technology using iBeacon and its Bluetooth connectivity.I could easily see future political campaigns facilitating onsite mobile donations at rallies and fundraisers with this technology. The beauty of the system is that donors would:
- be using a payment system that they trust (Apple),
- not have to re-learn a new payment process, and
- not need to signup/login to yet another system to make a donation.
At this point, Apple has a massive advantage in the mobile payments race. Nobody in the mobile space or the payments space owns a user end-to-end like Apple, not even Google or Amazon.Consider this:
Apple’s iTunes already has the credit card numbers of over 600 million users.
- Apple sold 55 million iPhones in 2013 alone. I guesstimate that there are probably 400 million iPhones in use right now.
- Apple already has a wallet like product, Passport, and has added finger print security to the newest iPhone 5s.
- Apple is gaining the all important foothold in the physical retail space with their iBeacon product.
All the mobile payment puzzle pieces are falling into place nicely for Apple and I think 2014 is the year that they bring it all to market.So again, I ask the question, will your campaign be accepting mobile donations processed through Apple before election day in November? It is a very likely scenario.