Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) is a modern version of wiring money transfers which blends the use of technology along with the transfer of money. There are several applications nowadays which make online transfer of money very easy. Even though there are risks involved, people prefer transferring money online rather than standing in long queues, filling different applications and then waiting for 2 days for their check to get cleared.
With Paytm, PhonePe, and many other applications, companies like Apple and Samsung have also joined the league. Apple Inc. has started a mobile payment and digital wallet service named Apple Pay. This service was introduced on September 9, 2014 with the launch of iPhone 6. With the pandemic outburst, there was a growth of 15% in the users of Apple Pay from 441 million in September 2019 to 507 million in September 2020. More than 50% Apple users are now using Apple pay. 5480 banks support Apple Pay globally, which has seen a significant rise of 29% from 4250 the last year. It is estimated that 95 out of 100 top retailers use Apple Pay and approximately 85% of all the retailers in the country are indulged in it. The question here is “What is Apple Inc. saying about Apple Pay?” The answer is not so simple. In Dec-19, CEO Tim Cook said that Apple Pay revenue and transactions have more than doubled year-over-year exceeding 15 billion transactions a year. In Sept-20, Cook said, “Apple Pay is doing exceptionally well & contactless payment has taken on a different level of adoption.”
It is projected that Apple Pay has generated global revenue of four billion U.S. Dollars, up from an estimated 988 million U.S. dollars in 2019. Apart from Apple Pay, the tech company has also launched Apple-brand credit cards, Apple card, in partnership with Goldman Sachs in August 2019.
On the other hand, Samsung pay was launched on 20th August, 2015. Samsung pay is yet another mobile payment app and digital wallet for Samsung users. Samsung who has a Brand value of 102.62 billion U.S. dollars and the global revenue of 206.21 billion USD, dominates around 20% of the smartphone market. Samsung Pay has surpassed 1 billion transactions and the number of users of Samsung Pay has doubled compared to 2018. Samsung Pay on the other hand distinguishes itself with the use of the technology Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) wherein tour mobile phone behaves as a credit card and only the magnetic chip is to be read by the machine and the transactions can be processed without any hustle. Samsung has launched Samsung Pay card in 2020 as a joint venture between Samsung Pay, Curve and MasterCard. Now the question arises which is better, Apple pay or Samsung Pay? Well, the straight forward answer is it depends upon you. If you value security and convenience of being able to use one payment platform for both in-persona and online then you should choose Apple pay otherwise the innovations Samsung has for you, with zero use of physical cards, you should opt for Samsung Pay. These platforms have been very useful during the pandemic as mostly all the vendors worldwide went digital to survive and sustain their businesses. For example, there are Chinese consumers who already conducted 56% of online transactions via e-wallets and in comparison US makes 23%.
As the digital ecosystem grows, both consumers and merchants are demanding payment mechanisms relevant to the way they interact with them. One of the reasons for the lack of market success in many new digital payment propositions is the lack of payments knowledge and understanding by the entrepreneurs developing them – of the settlement,, finality, mass volume, economics, financial crime, regulatory, liquidity, commodity, risk and other factors that are critical.
In essence, digital payments are a transformational opportunity.
*All pictures sourced from Unsplash.com
Written By - Anugruh
Edited By - Rhythm Aggrawal
Comments