NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – The head of transit payments gateway and processor Littlepay said he believes that Apple and Google are well-positioned to take a “big bite out of the payment chain,” which could change their relationship with payments networks Visa and Mastercard from one of collaboration to one of competition.
Amin Shayan, CEO of UK- and Australia-based Littlepay, said he believes the Silicon Valley giants are developing the building blocks that would enable them to control some of the billions of contactless transactions consumers conduct each year, if they chose to do so.
“Watch for what Google and Apple are going to do in this space,” Shayan said on a recent episode of the Leaders in Payments podcast. “When you think about it, they've got the security modules, the hardware and communication networks all within their own ecosystems. So if they wanted to, they could really take a big bite out of the payment value chain.”
