Swiping iPhone 6 May Soon Replace Credit Cards, Cash
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Move over cash, and debit cards, and credit cards.
Users of the new iPhone 6 will be able to access something called Apple Pay to pay retailers, restaurants, and other merchants with the flick of their smartphone.
"That's pretty neat. I think it will speed some things up, too, so that will be nice not waiting in line as much. Everyone is always on the move," said iPhone user Kevin Byer of Lawrenceville.
Those stores with Apple Pay will have special devices that allow you to pay for purchases by waving your iPhone 6, the latest Apple smartphone, in front of a special device.
Major retailers like Macy's, McDonalds, Subway, Walgreens and Whole Foods have already agreed to use Apple Pay, and now PNC Bank says it will work with its customers to get credit card and debit card information onto that iPhone 6.
"You'll actually be able to pay without reaching for your wallet. You'll be reaching for your phone starting later this fall," noted Tom Trebilcock, PNC's vice president of digital.
Beginning in October, cards from American Express, Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citi, and Wells Fargo will work, with other banks like PNC coming on board soon thereafter.
Trebilcock says payment information on your iPhone is not quite the same as your cards.
"The underlying payment credentials, meaning the numbers that show up on your credit card, will never be on the phone itself," he told KDKA money editor Jon Delano.
An identifier will substitute for card numbers, which PNC says makes it safer, protecting customers from the mass theft of credit and debit card info that occurred last winter.
And if that info is stolen and misused, Trebilcock says, "The same protections that are in place for your credit card are in place for Apple Pay."
"Our security is at risk all the time anyway. I don't know that it's going to be that much more risky than a credit card," said iPhone user and PNC customer David Work of Fox Chapel.
But substituting Apple Pay for cards and cash still worry some.
"I'm old school," said David Kaminski, of Guilford, Connecticut. "I want to pay with cash or a debit card and give it to them so I can control the transaction."
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