Once And For All, Is It Safe To Pay With Your iPhone?

February 10, 2017 | LISA FOGARTY of SheFinds.com

As long as you have an iPhone in your purse, there has never been a better excuse to ditch your bulky wallet or leave it at home. Many stores, apps, and websites on Safari offer an option where you can pay for your purchases using Apple Pay on your iPhone or Apple Watch. It’s convenient and fast — but is it a safe option?

Consider this reason #389 why you can’t live without your iPhone: using it to pay for purchases is one of the wisest security moves you can make, says Jason Chaikin, president of Vkansee, a leading biometric verification company and maker of a 2000dpi hi-res fingerprint sensor for mobile and IoT devices.

“Paying for business services through mobile payments, especially Apple Pay and, to a lesser extent, Samsung Pay and Android Pay, are safer than using regular swipe and chip-based credit cards,” Chaikin says. “The reason is that ,especially in the case of Apple Pay, biometric verification is required — via your fingerprint. So even if someone knows your PIN, that added layer of protection is really working for the consumer.”

Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Android Pay all feature a special function that completely hides your credit card number into a token, Chaikin says. That one-time token is transmitted, which confirms your transaction with the merchant, and your actual credit card number is never revealed to the merchant.

“It’s never taken out of your wallet or purse and since that token is not only encrypted, but only intended for one-time use, it represents a much higher level of security than a physical swipe or insertion of our new credit cards,” Chaikin says. “In general, using one of these three modalities to pay for goods and services has advantages — not only in terms of convenience and looking cool, but also because your actual credit card number is not exposed.”

Source: http://www.shefinds.com/collections/once-and-for-all-is-it-safe-to-pay-with-your-iphone/