Microsoft to Offer its Own Payment Solution to Rival Apple Pay
Microsoft to Offer its Own Payment Solution to Rival Apple Pay
After Apple, Google and Samsung, Microsoft is getting closer to its own payments solution. The so-called “Microsoft Payments” is all but confirmed now and can make an appearance once Windows 10 for phones hits the market.
A similar “tap to pay” feature has already been shown at a Windows hardware partners’ conference in China. The service, like Apple Pay and others uses NFC for payments and supports Host Card Emulation on Windows 10, which means you won’t need a SIM card or carrier support in order to carry out transactions.
It’s still not known whether some sort of secondary encryption in the form of fingerprint scanners will be mandatory, but Windows 10 does support a wide range of encryption methods, including iris, face and biometric-sensor support.
That’s not to say that wireless payments haven’t been available on Windows Phones up till now. Microsoft has already partnered with PayPal to support PayPal Here while a few third-party app developers such as Softcard already have their solutions for Redmond’s Mobile OS.
However, this will be the first time that Microsoft itself is working as a primary entity in this cause. With a comparatively limited reach until now, it will be interesting to see whether the new service, which will get a formal launch soon catches fire or not.
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