Apple Pay is a useful payment method that merchants across verticals and channels can leverage to improve the transaction experience for their customers. Simple and secure, Apple Pay has grown steadily in popularity, allowing Apple device holders to pay instantly at a merchant’s store. Using tokenisation, it offers a quick checkout experience, full verification of the cardholder and encryption of payment details, meaning that merchants can safely and efficiently accept payments. This article explores how Apple Pay can benefit businesses across multiple touchpoints.
How does it work?
Consumers need to upload and verify their bank card on their Apple device before being able to use it to pay online or offline. Debit, credit and pre-paid cards can be uploaded to the wallet from all major card schemes, including, Visa, Mastercard, American Express, JCB and Discover. The solution supports online and face to face payments for physical goods and services as well as donations and subscriptions in iOS apps and on the web.
From a merchant perspective, you will need to have a POS terminal that accepts Apple Pay, or if operating online, your PSP will need to support Apple Pay tokenisation in order to process the encrypted data. For the latter, merchants will need to connect to their PSP’s payment gateway with a server-to-server integration to ensure the payment process functions at optimum speed. When setting up Apple Pay in an app or on the web, merchants must register a merchant identifier and set up cryptographic keys, in order to handle encrypted payment information. It is recommended that the PSP manages this decryption, however, it is also possible for the merchant to do this. This is necessary to ensure that cardholder data is protected using tokenisation technology.
Benefits to your business
Accepting Apple Pay can enhance your online and offline payment offering, helping create a seamless customer journey. Wearable technology is set to stay and devices like Apple Watch tap into this trend and allow consumers to pay in-store or easily authorise online transactions. Below, we look at the benefits this method can bring to both eCommerce and face to face payments.
Online payments
One of the main benefits of Apple Pay is the ease in which your customers will be able to place payments. Once their cards are loaded onto their wallet, they can quickly place payments when browsing on their mobile or a Touch ID enabled Mac; the transaction is completed in the time it takes to scan their face or finger. Besides creating a simplified payment flow for customers, accepting Apple Pay could also reduce instances of fraud due to its customer authorisation process. Before the transaction can be completed, consumers need to go through an additional level of verification. This can be one of the following; Touch ID, Face ID or double-clicking their Apple Watch. Asking customers to authorise the transaction using something only they have means that payments made through Apple Pay adhere to secure customer authentication (SCA) requirements. Therefore, when PSD2 is rolled out you’ll already be offering a compliant payment method.
Face to face payments
To start accepting Apple Pay in your store, café or restaurant, you will need to have a POS terminal enabled with NFC technology that will allow for contactless, mobile payments. From here, customers can simply hold their device over the terminal to complete the transaction. This can help reduce queues and shorten the number of steps in the payment flow.
Not only does Apple Pay improve efficiency at the checkout, but it caters to changing shopping preferences. In a society where consumers are becoming increasingly reliant on their mobile or wearable device, it’s beneficial to allow them to pay with it in your store. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, it’s become more important than ever to encourage customers to pay using contactless, as it reduces the spread of the virus. In fact, coronavirus has made many consumers wary of using cash, so not offering payment methods, like Apple Pay, may cause you to miss out. In the next three years over a quarter of smartphone users are expected to pay in-store with their mobile in the UK, indicating that it’s a growing trend your business should prepare for now.
Furthermore, if your business operates online and offline, accepting Apple Pay on both these channels will give consistency to your brand.
Speak with a member of our team today to learn more about how adopting Apple Pay can bring benefits to your business.