Payment Request API for Apple Pay

https://webkit.org/blog/8182/introducing-the-payment-request-api-for-apple-pay/

by stablemap • 8 years ago

114 51 8 years ago

MBCook5• 8 years ago

This is great to see. I knew they were working on it (since they’re transparent about what features they’re working on) but I figured they would end up in iOS 12 and Safari 12 in MacOS Tuscaloosa.

Great job guys!

jaredcwhite2• 8 years ago

The importance of this cannot be overstated. ~25 years after the web was first popularized, we have an open payments layer API that is supported by the most popular mobile wallet.

I know Apple Pay's killer app when it was first announced was the ability to pay easily in-store, but I feel like this is actually a bigger deal. I never had much annoyance with whipping out a card at a grocery store, but paying for things online in a way that's ridiculously fast as well as secure has always been a dicey proposition. This is a huge leap forward.

analogmemory• 8 years ago

Agreed, it's fun to use my phone to pay in the store, but not needing to input my address and cc details feels like magic.

Boulth• 8 years ago

Last time I checked the Payment API it was pretty low level, for example you'd get CC numbers. Processing that would then require PCI-DSS compliance so you'd likely still need a payment processor like Stripe. Payment API just provided a nicer UI for your cards and maybe virtual numbers in case of Google Wallet.

aestes4• 8 years ago

OP here.

You’d only get a card number when using the “basic-card” payment method, which Safari does not support.

Apple Pay provides a payment token instead, which does not reveal your physical card number.

fizwhiz2• 8 years ago

"most popular mobile wallet"

Citation? PayPal/Venmo seem far, far ahead.

abalone4• 8 years ago

Venmo is not a mobile wallet. It's for bank transfers (i.e. ACH), not credit/debit card payments.

PayPal is widely supported online but I doubt they are far, far ahead in the real world, which I think is what people mean by "mobile" wallet.

chatmasta2• 8 years ago

Just guessing based on my experience, but it seems like Apple Pay has broader worldwide adoption than Venmo, which is tied to the US banking system.

jaredcwhite2• 8 years ago

This is the most recent useful data I could find on short notice: https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-pay-users-nearly-double-in-2...

Between Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Android Pay (which I believe recently got rebranded as just Google Pay), Apple Pay is ahead in userbase numbers by a considerable margin — perhaps not as much now as a year ago, but I doubt it was overtaken.

daniel-grigg• 8 years ago

WeChat and Alipay both dwarf all of the above. Pity they don’t strive to be more accepted in the West.

ucaetano10• 8 years ago

open payments layer API that is supported by the most popular mobile wallet

Does it only support Apple Pay? Kinda of a downgrade from Chrome and the W3 specification:

https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/payments/

https://www.w3.org/TR/payment-request/

Oh, and WeChat Pay has 600 million active users, far more than Apple Pay:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/744944/mobile-payment-pl...

aeontech3• 8 years ago

It’s the same W3C API, where do you see that this is Apple-only API?

discussedbefore• 8 years ago

Does Apple take 30% on the web?

mikestew• 8 years ago

No. You think Whole Foods is handing over 30% of my grocery bill when I use Apple Pay?

zaksoup2• 8 years ago

To add some context to the other reply: Apple doesn't take ANY cut of Apple Pay payments, even on native mobile apps. Apple does, however, require that app store apps ONLY allow the purchase of physical or similar goods with Apple Pay. For instance, they'll reject an app that uses Apple Pay to allow the purchase of eBooks, instead of the in-app-purchase API (which does take a 30% cut). This is why Kindle forces you to the web to buy eBooks, but allows you to buy physical amazon goods in the native app.

Similarly how you can use Apple Pay to call an Uber/Lyft in-app.

That said, Apple Pay is just a layer between you and the user's credit card - there's no functional difference at the transaction layer between accepting Apple Pay and having a credit card form in your App. This is why Stripe/Paypal et al. all 'support' Apple Pay. You still need a payment processor who can take the Apple Pay token and turn it into a transaction that puts money into your account.

The in-app-purchase API, however, directly charge's the user's credit card on file with Apple and is credited to your developer account as a payment.

TL;DR Apple Pay is a layer between customer and payment processor, IAPs are a layer between customer and merchant. Apple takes 30% of IAP. Payment processors of Apple Pay take a cut before passing payment on to merchant (Stripe is 2.9% + 30c/transaction, for instance).

chatmasta2• 8 years ago

You sure about those TOS requirements? Last I checked all you needed was a separate website providing equivalent service. If you charged for a subscription on the website, and you have an app too, then the user should be able to use your app since they've already paid the subscription.

jtbayly• 8 years ago

I know they don't take 30%, but I can't figure out what the cost is. According to Apple, it's free, but does the seller generally have to pay more in CC fees to get Apple Pay support?

shivaas• 8 years ago

The merchant pays anywhere from 1.6% to 3% of the transaction amount in fees to the payment processors/gateways. Part of this goes to Visa/MC and the issuing banks. Apple gets a cut from them and that's how they make money/break even. The Seller pays their card issuer directly or indirectly. You're not interacting with Apple pay support as Apple pay is not the one processing your payment - its simply storing your card securely and generating a payment token for the merchant when invoked.

abalone4• 8 years ago

That's up to the processor you (the merchant) sign up with, just like anything else. Apple takes 0.15% and that comes out of the card issuing bank's end.[1]

Quick 101 on how card fees work generally:

Card issuer banks (Citibank, Chase, Bank of America, etc.) contract with a card network (VISA, MC, etc.) and earn a standard fee schedule called Interchange (it's public, you can look it up, typically 1.x-2.x% depending on the card type). This is the bulk of where the card fees go, and often funds card rewards and benefits.

Meanwhile merchants contract with processors (e.g. Chase Paymentech, Heartland, First Data, Square, etc. etc.) who interface with all the card networks, marking up those interchange fees with their own margins. The processors may set up merchants with equipment, or maybe a third party POS vendor does that. But most fundamentally processors are responsible for any merchant-related fraud on the network.

That is why processor markups and merchant vetting procedures can vary -- and why Apple would never take the place of the processor. It's merchant-specific work and involves financially vouching for them. The less vetting the processor does (Square, Stripe), the higher the markup. The more vetting, the close to interchange the fee is going to be.

[1] https://www.digitaltransactions.net/apple-pay-no-charge-for-...

saagarjha• 8 years ago

Nice! I just tried out the demo and it seemed to work (hopefully I don't have a charge on my credit card tomorrow, though!). One thing that I saw was that it took a while to do processing, though; something like 30 seconds. I'm not sure if this could be improved.

MBCook5• 8 years ago

I’ve used Apple Pay on the web before and it’s quite fast. My guess is that some sort of side effect of the sandbox that I assume that little demo is running in.

ucaetano10• 8 years ago

Does Safari only supports Apple Pay, unlike the Chrome implementation and the actual W3 Payment Request API specifications?

https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/payments/

https://www.w3.org/TR/payment-request/

aeontech3• 8 years ago

The very first line of the article states:

“We’re pleased to announce that Safari 11.1 on macOS and Safari on iOS 11.3 now support the W3C Payment Request API for conducting Apple Pay transactions on the web.”

ucaetano10• 8 years ago

Yes, I read that part:

"W3C Payment Request API for conducting Apple Pay transactions"

My question is: is this only for Apple Pay? Safari won't support any other payment method/service?

aestes4• 8 years ago

The Payment Request spec is agnostic to payment methods. It doesn’t require implementors to support any particular method(s).

WebKit implements Payment Request, and Safari supports Apple Pay as a payment method. Other browsers that implement Payment Request might support other methods.

Edit: spelling

ucaetano10• 8 years ago

WebKit implements Payment Request, and Safari supports Apple Pay as a payment method. Other browsers that implement Payment Request might support other methods.

So Safari ONLY supports Apple Pay?

kitsunesoba• 8 years ago

Very nice. The web shops that’ve implemented Apple Pay already are much nicer to use than your average shop between elimination of the need to fill (or even auto fill!) addresses and the security of single use tokens.

Once web payments is implemented widely I’ll likely start avoiding shops that don’t implement them.

Payment Request API for Apple Pay

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