Apple’s vice president of internet services and chief of its Apple Pay division Jennifer Bailey has bad news for anyone attached to their designer leather wallet. Bailey and her colleagues at the tech giant have a very clear, paradigm-shifting goal for their Apple Pay payment system: they believe it’s poised to completely replace your physical wallet.
Many are familiar with Apple Pay, the tech company’s payment system that was introduced in 2014. In its most common current use, users are able to use the system to make purchases with a single tap at participating retailers.
However, Bailey notes that this is only the first step in Apple’s overall goal of getting rid of the physical wallet. Speaking at Fortune’s Brainstorm Reinvent 2018 conference, Bailey revealed that “when [Bailey and her colleagues] thought about Apple Pay, we really thought broadly about wanting to do services that replace the wallet….we wanted to start with payments.”
Apple Pay is already moving beyond simply replacing credit cards. Bailey notes that the service is making inroads into replacing transit cards as well, with Apply Pay now working at public transit stations in 12 metropolitan areas around the world. A number of universities have begun making student IDs that are compatible with Apple Wallet, enabling students to tap their phones to unlock their dorms or pay for their meal in the school cafeteria.
Bailey sees almost unlimited possibilities for Apple Pay: “There’s actually a number of areas you can think about that we can extend this type of technology. Hospitality, hotel rooms, is definitely one. Versus being issued a card at the check-in, you could check in via the app and you could get digital-issuance of a hotel room key.”
It should be no surprise that Bailey has had a leading role in shaping Apple Pay’s ongoing goals. She’s been vice president of the division since the beginning, transitioning from her role as vice president of online stores—a position she held for 11 years. Prior to joining Apple in 2003, Bailey held a number of senior positions at tech companies such as myCFO, Spark and Kindling and Netscape Communications. She began her career in 1984 as a software engineer at ATP Boston.
Bailey received her bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Middlebury College and her Master of Science in business from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. She also completed a junior year aboard program in the London School of Economics’ Economics and Operations Research program.
