The emerging e-wallet

(The Boston Globe, November 04, 2013)

When Will Graylin held his iPhone up to a credit card reader to buy lip balm for $5.29, the cashier did a double take. “That’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen,” said Bonnie Lingoski, a longtime employee of the Coop in Harvard Square. Graylin used his smartphone to wirelessly transmit his card number to Lingoski's register. With the tap of a button, he completed the sale, leaving behind an astonished cashier. Using still-nascent technology, most of the mobile payment systems available today are aimed at merchants and require special equipment, such as a credit card readers. But Loop’s approach is aimed at consumers, and it involves small discrete gadgets that store the user’s credit card information and wirelessly transmit it when close to a magnetic card reader commonly attached to cash registers.