What is Apple Pay and how does it work?

It’s a really simple mobile payment method that lets you pay for things quickly, without needing to use a physical credit or debit card. Instead, you can pay using an Apple device, like an iPhone, iPad or an Apple Watch.

How does Apple Pay work?

The Apple Wallet is an app that lets you store your debit and credit cards securely for easy access. So long as you add your card details to your Apple Wallet on your device, you’ll be able to make a payment with it.

When you are ready to pay, you’ll just need to enter your phone passcode or use the Touch ID to wake up your device, then hold it close to the card reader until it says it’s accepted. Simple.

If you’re used to making contactless payments, it’s very similar. However, unlike contactless, there is no limit on how much you can spend using Apple Pay (unless one has been set by the individual retailer), so it is just like using your card, but quicker!

You can choose which card to pay with by going into your wallet each time you pay, or for ease, pre-set a preferred card to use with every payment.

No matter which Apple device you use to pay, they all use NFC technology (Near Field Communication) to process a payment. This lets two devices communicate with each other over electromagnetic radio fields.

The two devices (the phone and card machine for example) need to be close to each other to communicate, so don’t worry, you can’t accidentally pay for someone else’s shopping!

How secure is it?

Apple Pay uses payment tokenisation to keep your details safe.

This means that when you add your details onto the device, the information is replaced with a randomly generated string of numbers and letters – known as a token.

The token is meaningless on its own, and if someone were to get access to it, they wouldn’t be able to get the original payment details. Plus, it can’t be reverted back to the actual card details so it’s super safe.

Plus, if you lose your device, you can use ‘Find my iPhone’ to suspend any payments from it – so you won’t need to cancel any of your credit or debit cards.

How to accept Apple Pay in your business

With takepayments, there’s no additional set-up or cost needed to start taking Apple Pay in your business.

All of our card machines come with it enabled as standard, alongside contactless and Android Pay.

Vanessa Littler

Digital Marketing Executive