@Banks: Apple’s P2P Payments Could Loosen Up the “Ecosystem”

Apple NFC Patent Diagram via Slashgear

Drafting well behind this fortnight’s Apple announcement leaders, the iPad launch and iPhone OS 4.0 with multitasking, was this lovely gem:

via Slashgear

According to the Transactions app details in the patent documentation, the user would register a credit or debit card, bank account or iTunes account with the software.  That would then – just like buying a track on iTunes or software from the App Store – allow them to tap in how much money they wanted to give to a friend (or, indeed, a retailer) and have it billed directly to their account.

Whether this service will see light of day or not remains to be seen, but given the breadth of the patent and the inclusion of NFC in the drawings, the implications would be far-reaching to say the least.