Apple Pay comes to the web, taking on PayPal
Your move, PayPal.
Apple is broadening its mobile payment service, Apple Pay, to work on the web, positioning it to take a chunk of transactions from new and existing online shoppers.
The Apple Pay web expansion, rumored in recent months, was announced at Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday.
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The move puts Apple Pay more closely in competition with services like PayPal, providing a seamless and potentially safer way to make to make payments online without having to re-enter credit card information.
PayPal stock was down slightly after the announcement.
"It's a big step for Apple, which historically hasn't done much with the web," says Jan Dawson, an analyst with Jackdaw Research. "Web-native payment methods dominate this space right now."
The expansion, he adds, also serves as a way for Apple to "get around" the difficulty of boosting adoption for Apple Pay at physical retail locations.
With the web feature, Apple customers will be able to click a single Apple Pay button to pay for purchases on websites like Gilt and Vanity Fair, then authenticate those purchases using their fingerprints on a connected iPhone.
The caveat: Apple Pay only works in Apple's web browser, Safari, and it only pairs with an Apple Pay-enabled devices, meaning the iPhone 6, 6 Plus and 6S and the Apple Watch.
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Seth Fiegerman was a Senior Business Reporter at Mashable, where he covered startups, marketing and the latest consumer tech trends. He joined Mashable in August 2012 and is based in New York.Before joining Mashable, Seth covered all things Apple as a reporter at Silicon Alley Insider, the tech section of Business Insider. He has also worked as a staff writer at TheStreet.com and as an editor at Playboy Magazine. His work has appeared in Newsweek, NPR, Kiplinger, Portfolio and The Huffington Post.Seth received his Bachelor of Arts from New York University, where he majored in journalism and philosophy.In his spare time, Seth enjoys bike riding around Brooklyn and writing really bad folk songs.
