Apple Pay greatly simplifies the payment of services and products at the establishments we visit. But when do we need cash? Apple Pay also allows us to withdraw money from an ATM and all this without having your credit card with us.
A card for every device and the magic of NFC
Thanks to Apple Pay, we can move around comfortably and pay for everything we need, without having to carry the wallet with us. This is possible thanks to the number of stores and establishments that accept payments via contactless technology.
During the Apple Pay setup process, the bank provides us with a virtual card connected to our account. This means that in addition to our physical credit or debit card issued by our bank, we have a virtual card for our iPhone, another for our Apple Watch, etc.
Payment details for a physical card are stored in the chip of the same card. When said physical card approaches the dataphone, the radio waves emitted are sufficient to power the card and allow it to issue the details of it to formalize the payment.
Each of our devices with Apple Pay can identify us to our bank.
When we activate Apple Pay on our iPhone or Apple Watch, what we do is the NFC chip of our device transmits the information of our card. Which map ? Virtual card, linked to our account like the physical card, which we download when we configure Apple Pay on our phone or our watch.
All of this brings us to something very important. Each of our devices contains a debit or credit card issued by our bank. And that’s what we need to take into account when thinking about withdrawing money from an ATM. More and more ATMs have an NFC reader, also called contactless, so that we can use our iPhone or Apple Watch to get money from them.
The process is as easy as go to the ATM, activate Apple Pay on our iPhone or Apple Watch and move our phone or watch closer to the NFC reader at the ATM. Our bank will identify us in exactly the same way as if we were to insert our physical card into the machine and this will allow us to operate normally. This means, in a nutshell, that our iPhone or Apple Watch allows us to get money almost anywhere in the territory.
Has anyone ever withdrawn money from an ATM using the Apple Watch? (you can, can’t you?)
– 🙅🏻♂️ José Mendiola (@jose_mendiola) December 5, 2018
What if the ATM in question does not have an NFC? We also have resources. It is true that this is something very unusual, but it is possible. The vast majority of banks offer the possibility of identifying themselves at the ATM by SMS. This means that we can type in our phone number, the entity sends us a message and, by entering the code we received at the ATM, it verifies that it is indeed us and allows us to operate.
This system, depending on the entity, may either not be available at all or may have restrictions on the amounts we can withdraw. However, it gives us one more option when needed.
After seeing what we’ve seen, it’s clear that carrying our cards on the iPhone or Apple Watch allows us more than just paying for a product quickly and securely. If necessary, we can access cash in a very comfortable way.
