Apple might be preparing its own mobile payments system

Ever since Apple  introduced the Passbook – a neat app that allows consumers to store loyalty cards, tickets, gift cards and passes on their iPhones – talk has heated up about exactly when the tech giant will enter the field of mobile payments. This year is no different, and the conjecture has begun as to whether Apple will include Near Field Communication technology, which would allow iPhone users to make mobile payments to merchants who use NFC, in the iPhone 6. Apple, as usual, is silent on the issue.

Apple may be gearing up to build its own proprietary mobile payment system. That’s according to a study titled “Mobile Payments — Blue Paper Revisit, EMV in Focus” from Morgan Stanley’s Research group in Europe. The study was obtained by VentureBeat exclusively. Morgan Stanley’s PR team did not respond to requests for comment, nor did several of the researchers whose names, phone numbers, and email addresses accompanied the blue paper. If Apple goes ahead and builds its own payment system, it would be a stroll down logic lane, according to a mobile payment executive. “It makes sense that they would. It would give them more control. Apple has more than 400 million credit cards on file just from iTunes alone. That gives them serious position to be in this space,” said the executive who declined to be named.