In reply to Payments_Geek.

“…what it could be in the future.”

Also overlooked is the fact that Apple does not claim to be a payments processor, only a supposedly more secure interface to the established credit card system. Maybe Apple could start its own licensed banking operation, like Amex; or maybe Apple could buy Amex. Regardless, in the final analysis, prudent consumers store their funds in licensed, prudentially regulated, FDIC-insured financial institutions (of which eBay’s clunky “PreyPal” operation is not one) and access to those funds is only possible “interactively” via a credit card, or non-interactively, via the banks’ ACH system; ACH transactions are not in “real time”, they are aggregated by the banks for overnight settlement and such mechanism is not suitable for the payment for goods/services that are going to immediately walk out the door at physical POS as if the payer’s funds/credit are insufficient then an ACH debit will be reversed the following day …