Imagine that your iPhone became your wallet, and you could charge micro-trasactions to your phone bill just as easily as a credit card.
Would you use it?
Rumors are swirling around Apple’s plans to keep their $50 billion in cash. Steve Jobs stated during Apple’s last earnings call that these funds are: to keep Apple “powder dry†in case “one or more strategic opportunities . . . come along.†This info sent made speculations fly. What would they buy? Since Apple never makes huge acquisitions, but smaller talent and technology ones, attention came to rest on Apple’s interest in mobile payment start-up BOKU.
With Apple’s interest in mobile payments, and their M&A discussions with BOKU it seems a logical choice. Putting Apple in the unique position of making mobile payments more mainstream. Since Apple already handles payments with iTunes, which has 160 million active credit cards, this could be a huge opportunity. And since BOKU’s strength is with young customers or those in developing countries, with or without credit cards, it would make it even easier to sell apps, songs, and movies through iTunes
The sky is the limit, and over time payments could spread from online services and goods to real world purchases making the iPhone even more indispensable then it is now.
Even though nothing has been signed yet the question remains: Will Apple ever take the next logical step and become a payments processor?
