Trouble is brewing in mobile payments

Now that big-box retailers have stuck their fat fingers into mobile payments, can the next major credit card breach be far 

behind?

With mobile payments, it would seem that we're entering yet another new battlefront located at the corner of technology, crime, and our wallets. Forgive me if I use past as prologue and predict that this will not go well, at least for the short term. 

Payments via NFC (near-field communications) have been possible for a while now, and we've had payments via RFID for even longer. However, the United States is still mired in the card-swipe era, while most of the rest of the world has moved on to chip-and-pin or tap payments, which are rooted in the established technology of point-of-sale payment processors.

 That means you have a physical item such as a credit card or fob. When you wave that item by a scanner and tap the scanner to confirm, the device is authenticated and charges are made to your account via a clearinghouse.

Both Apple and Google are heavily involved. Apple's new Apple Pay framework has been developed to allow iPhone users to essentially upload their credit and debit cards to their phone, then select the appropriate card to use when making payments. 

By waving the phone over a sensor with your finger on the phone’s fingerprint scanner, you validate the charge. Apple stands in the middle, both paying the retailer and debiting your bank account or charging your credit card. 

Derl Chairman