Visa Talks With Apple As Part Of Plan To Push Wireless Payments

Wireless payments, perhaps powered by NFC technology or something like it, are definitely inbound--for a bunch of reasons that start with consumer convenience and end with dynamic personalized advertising and shopper analytics. Odds are it'll be a billion-dollar industry soon enough--which explains why there's such a complex, layered, and consumer-hostile battle for the tech going on behind the scenes. Fascinating then that Visa, a master of the current plastic card payment paradigm, is so active in its wireless innovations. To wit: Last week Visa chose the very public CES show as a great time to flex a little muscle, and announced that it had certified a bunch of Android-powered phones to be compatible with its PayWave systems. Android is the most ubiquitous smartphone operating system, so this move can only be a good thing. Visa also licenses PayWave royalty free to Google and ISIS, and, says Bill Gajda, the Global Head of Mobile Product, "is in discussions with a number of other mobile operators, handset manufacturers, OS providers on how we can license PayWave as broadly as possible to give our issuers as broad and flexible an opportunity to participate in NFC payments as possible." That got us thinking: What about Apple?