Will Apple Disrupt Payments?

One can make an argument that any Apple mobile payment system, even if it remains largely aimed at iTunes users and products, will disrupt the existing payments business. Apple does have a base of 160 million iTunes users, said Avivah Litan an analyst at Gartner.

That base gives Apple the ability to operate largely as a "closed payment system" with minimal need to interface with credit card companies and banks, she said. "They can largely shut out credit card companies if they choose to,"and operate in much the same way that PayPal has done in the virtual world, she said.

Some will argue that this approach actually is rather credit card issuer "friendly." Users of iTunes will probably need to continue using their credit cards and bank accounts to replenish the funds in their iTunes accounts, which would make any Apple mobile payments system a distributor for card companies in much the same way that PayPal is. The main issue is the loss of analytics for the card issuers.

Apple could disrupt mobile payment industry, analysts say