PayPal mocks Apple Pay: ‘It’s much more difficult to do payments than to keep a live stream working’

Apple Pay may not have won the same headlines as the iPhone 6 and Apple Watch, but in business circles it was certainly the highlight of Apple’s presentation last night.

Apple Pay offers contactless payment using an iPhone, in theory doing away with the need to carry around credit or debit cards.

However, leading payment firm PayPal has warned Apple that it faces an uphill battle to make any headway in the sector.

"Nobody can dispute Apple’s strong track record, but payments is a difficult area," PayPal’s Rob Skinner told TechRadar. "It’s much more difficult to do payments than to keep a live stream working."

(This is a reference to the fact that the live feed of Apple’s event last night faced widespread technical problems.)

"We were very interested in Apple’s announcement but there wasn’t a lot that was surprising, least of all to us," he added. "One of the most interesting things was essentially how much of the language that Apple was using that we have been using for a long time – things like not sharing information with the merchants or your credit card details.

"We’re quite surprised that Apple Pay has limited functionality. You can’t expect people just to swap their leather wallets for digital ones, you have to offer more and there is nothing to reward loyalty or provide offers or anything built in with Apple Pay."