Apple Pay files patent for peer-to-peer payment functionality

Apple Pay is attempting to overcome one of the major flaws in its mobile payment and digital wallet system, which is its lack of peer-to-peer payment functionality, according to the reported filing of a new patent during the closing days of 2015. The patent details a new feature that may allow Apple to bring mobile payments to iMessage, in order to appeal to its target demographic of younger US millennial men, who are particularly fond of peer-to-peer payments and frequently prefer to use messaging services to interact. Such a move would help Apple fend off challenges from rivals including Samsung Pay in the US mobile payments market, which reports predict will be saturated by the end of 2016.

Apple’s Mobile Payment Ambitions May Extend to iMessage

January 6, 2016 By: Steven Anderson

It’s no secret that one of Apple Pay’s biggest flaws is a lack of a peer-to-peer option.

While payments can go from customer to business readily, customer to customer is not so much an option.

That may be about to change based on an Apple patent filed in the closing days of 2015 that may bring mobile payments to iMessage…and some other services as well.

The patent filing itself offers an illustration to drive home its point; an iPhone screen with a text message dialog screen up asks if the phone’s holder could pay the message’s originator, one M. Smith, back for lunch. The responder indicates that that would be no problem, and a small button marked “Make Payment” is located alongside the “Message with M. Smith” notification.

A second illustration points out how users would be able to add “additional recipients” to the payment going out to M. Smith, as well as the amount desired.

This suggests a particular push on the younger market, as 18 to 34 year old users are particularly fond of peer-to-peer payments, and frequent users of messaging services.

That kind of synergy is hard to come by, and should be taken advantage of. There’s no word about just when Apple will make that move, if it ever will—this wouldn’t be the first time an Apple patent went up in smoke—but it could be a game changer.

Apple’s move to peer-to-peer represents a major move. While the obvious move here is to call it a simple gap-filler that takes care of one of Apple Pay’s biggest flaws, its inability to pass payment from one person to another, it also represents something else: a means to fend off further competition.

With Samsung Pay entering the market soon, and most every business coming out with its own branded app—not to mention those of the various handset makers—for mobile payments, the end result will be a packed house.

While Apple will have the support of the diehard faithful, it will likely need more than that to continue being viable as the market gains more competitors.

Apple was a clear innovator in mobile payments. To keep a part of the market it helped create, though, will require continued innovation. Thankfully, that seems to be a part of the picture with this new patent, if it becomes an actual feature.