Next-gen Apple Pay could provide automatic receipts, loyalty card benefits, and more

Apple Pay enables simple, secure contactless payments with a single tap. It’s one of the most used features of an iPhone. And according to a new publication from the NFC Forum about the next generation of contactless payments, it’s likely to gain some powerful new capabilities in the future.

Apple Pay to get multiple benefits with a single tap

The NFC Forum today published an overview of the work being done to evolve the NFC standard—a standard that powers Apple Pay today. The highlight: NFC Multi-Purpose Tap.

“Multi-Purpose Tap will bring even more convenience to contactless user experiences by making it possible for multiple transactions to be seamlessly conducted over the course a one single tap,” explains Mike McCamon, Executive Director of NFC Forum.

NFC Multi-Purpose Tap is currently still a concept in development, but it points toward the future that’s to come for Apple Pay and other contactless payment services. Here are some practical examples of what it could make possible.

Examples include simultaneously taking retail payments while adding loyalty points and promotions; applying concessions and best fare pricing when purchasing travel tickets; or receiving details on how a product can be recycled and reused when buying goods.

In other words, imagine that the next time you tap with Apple Pay at a local store, you automatically:

• get a detailed purchase receipt transferred to Apple Wallet
• get credit for the store’s loyalty program
• and automatically apply any discounts or coupons you may have

That’s the kind of multi-benefited capability that could be enabled in a future version of Apple Pay.

For those unfamiliar with the NFC Forum, the group stewards the NFC standard and develops it. Unsurprisingly, it includes board involvement from representatives of companies like Apple and Google. So the decisions it makes for NFC will not only directly impact NFC-powered features like Apple Pay, but those decisions are also, in part, being guided by Apple.

What would you want to see in a next-gen version of Apple Pay? Let us know in the comments.