Apple Pay - Digital Payments Without the Flood of Personal Information

In October, 2014 Apple released Apple Pay via an update to its mobile operating system. iOS Version 8.1 received an update that allowed iPhone users to make secure digital payments for goods and services at supporting retailers. We finally see Near Field Communication (NFC) being used for its intended purpose and Apple (as expected) is launching exclusively to the iPhone 6 family and soon to the Apple Watch.



During the CMS Insider segment on CMS-Connected in February, Scott and Butch took a moment to discuss Apple Pay and it’s unique offering to the digital commerce space.

Eluding to conversations held with fellow DCG analyst Tim Walters, Scott reveals a cautionary tone related to Big Data’s greed and seemingly naive view of privacy and security of the collected data. We can point to many very high profile security breaches throughout the last 12 months.

What sets Apple Pay apart is that neither the banks nor the retailers are soaking up any data from the transaction.
 
Quite rightfully, as ‘smart data’ is dawning and companies are desperate for customer journey and engagement data, some companies are annoyed at not having this information to build into their remarketing infrastructure.
 

Personalized, Relevant Experience or Information Security

Many companies have pushed back at this notion of refusing to provide the customer data, however only time will tell what the balance between security and personalized experience is and how this will affect Apple Pay’s policy.
 

In the end the consumers will drive the successful model, but what will that be. On the one hand we can have extremely personalized and relevant shopping experiences when we provide our customer journey data to the retailer. Take Amazon for example; an incredibly personalized and relevant experience. They remember what you looked at, provide directly relevant suggestions, they know everything about you and the consumer is okay with that.
 

I Like my Personalized Content, How is this New Model More Convenient?

Up until now, there was no choice, we just carried on allowing companies to capture our data because it was the thing to do. We didn't’t realize we were doing it and for the most part had no idea of the risk. The Target debacle recharged this privacy conversation with the general public. We may start to see people move away simply out of fear and that there is now a fully fledged option.

On the content management side of things we have seen a wholesale move by some of the CMS giants like Sitecore, Adobe, Acquia who have completely retooled their core product to be able to deliver a completely personalized experience. This experience however relies on the willingness of the consumer to consent to their data being mined.

Butch offers his personal prediction on the Apple Pay topic:
 
So will this happen? Will Apple cave to the desires of consumers expecting that personalized experience. Will the subsequent data reveal a significant drop in sales, leads, returns and completed transactions from all Apple Pay customers?

Watch the segment again and let us know!