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Apple Pay has had a rather turbulent upraising, ever since it was announced back in September 2014. Cupertino's NFC-based wireless payment service has hit more than a few snags in the short time it has been around, ranging from technical and hardware problems to user and retailer distrust. But whether the tech giant wants to admit it or not, it has been working extra hard to shove the platform into use any way it can and by all means necessary. One testament to this dedication is the huge saga Apple has been tackling ferociously to push the payment system into China, as well as the US and Canada.
Industry sources now hint at yet another major effort to boost the popularity to Apple Pay. Rumors state that Cupertino is preparing a rewards program to compliment Apple Pay, which should be announced at this year's WWDC on June 8. The idea is that Apple Pay users will get the benefit of various perks when they use the NFC payment system instead of more traditional methods. Currently, the only real incentive to opt for ApplePay was convenience and even though that has proven to be enough of an incentive for a lot of people, Apple wants to give current and prospective users more reasons to switch to Apple Pay.
Some could argue that this is also a strategic move against competitors like Google Wallet and Samsung, which recently acquired LoopPay, both presumably headed in the same direction. An NFC payment war could, indeed, be looming, but both of these services are currently limited to Android, whereas Apple Pay naturally requires iOS and we don't really see anybody opting for one or the other because of payment methods quite yet.
It is not yet clear what kind of perks Apple will offer. Perhaps some reward point system will be put into place, or a much simpler and straight-forward discount plan. It is also important to see what vendors take part in the initiative. All of this and more is most probably going to be addressed at WWDC. We might even see the rewards program get officially announced, but, it is expected that it won't start to function before the roll-out of iOS 9 later this fall.
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