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Could Apple Pay End Data Breaches in the USA?

Could Apple Pay End Data Breaches in the USA?

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It seems that every week a new company has their critical business information and their customer credit cards stolen. The main reason for the breach problems is the magnetic stripe technology used in the United States.

Credit Card Security Issues

May 2013 Michaels Stores Data on 3 million credit and debit cards stolen
Oct 2013 Neiman Marcus Data on 1 million credit and debit cards stolen
Dec 2013 Target Data on 40 million credit and debit cards stolen
Jun 2014 PF Changs Unknown amount of card data stolen
Sep 2014 Home Depot Data on over 60 million cards stolen
Oct 2014 Sears/Kmart Data Breach
Oct 2014 Dairy Queen Data Breach 

The Identity Theft Resource Center recorded 614 breaches on the 2013 ITRC breach list, a dramatic increase of 30% over the total number of breaches tracked in 2012.

Apple Pay Acceptance Issues

Sep 2014 Apple Pay Only 220,000 of the 8 million merchants can accept NFC

The question that many business owners are asking themselves is what is the best way to safeguard their credit card data. At AppStar Financial we have a solution to protect the credit card information of small merchants. The emv90x state-of-the-art terminal helps merchants eliminate risk by giving them the ability to accept encrypted chip cards which was originally priced at $69.95/mo is now only $49.95/mo.

The emv90x terminal also allows merchants to accept NFC payments – Apple is a trend leader and the new capabilities in Apple Pay on the new iPhone 6 should dramatically move the market demand for payment acceptance at the point of sale. The new Samsung phones have this NFC capability as well. We now strongly believe that the time is very near to say good bye to wallets – who likes carrying around a wallet in their trouser pockets? Merchants who cannot accept NFC payments might find themselves losing sales as customers have no cash or cards on them.

All of the above merchants who were breached are quickly converting to EMV and NFC capable terminals. Many will have them in place by the end of the year. Issuers are starting to issue chip cards – you may already have received one.