Our teams have been preparing for the day payments would be made using near field communication (NFC) and tokenization. With this week’s introduction of Apple Pay, that day appears to have arrived.
What some may see as a disruptor to the payments industry, we see as validation of the path our experts have been traveling.
At this summer’s TMG Executive Summit, our financial institution clients learned of TMG’s vision for a consumer-centric digital wallet – a smart combination of mobile banking and mobile payments into one tool powered by NFC and host card emulation (HCE) technologies. At the same time, we unveiled our initial wearables product, See2Pay, which allows consumers to make payments via Google Glass. At TMG, we are always open to exploring and embracing other emerging payment technologies if they are likely to gain momentum in marketplace. Agility is the key to remaining relevant in a fast-paced changing payments landscape, and we view it as a critical factor in our ability to serve financial institutions and consumers in the future.
Although Apple’s news has created quite a bit of buzz about the new future of payments, EMV, NFC, tokenization and wearable devices used for payments have been part of TMG’s strategic product roadmap for the past 18 months. Our vision for the future of payments remains intact, as we look to develop solutions for both iPhone and Android users.
What Apple this week did was to shine an even brighter spotlight on NFC, tokenization – and to some extent even biometrics – to complete a payment. This is expected to spur more merchants to enable their terminals for NFC and more online retailers to adopt tokenization. Of course, it’s also expected to inspire more consumers to consider making payments from their connected devices.
Why is this so impactful? Because the combination of NFC and tokenization will lead to increased security that will benefit issuers, merchants and consumers. What EMV promises to do for card-present fraud, tokenization promises to do for card-not-present fraud.
Thanks to TMG’s partnership with First Data, we are excited to announce support for Apple Pay, as well as First Data’s Integrated Token Services. Servicing both issuers and merchants, First Data is poised to accelerate mainstream acceptance and use of tokenization. This in turn paves the path for TMG and our clients to offer these new payment technologies.
More than anything, we are proud to be an industry pacesetter alongside our future-focused clients. Whether it’s setting a course for EMV or blazing a trail with NFC and tokenization, it’s such an exciting time to be in the business of payments.