Mobile pay options Apple Pay and Samsung Pay have made their way onto the IU Southeast campus.

Beginning this past summer, the IU Southeast bookstore began accepting the mobile options for payment at its registers.

Julie E. Faulds,  store manager at the bookstore, said the change was consolidated with another upgrade made to the bookstore registers.

“We did the upgrade over the summer at the same time we did the chip upgrade,” she said. “We had to have it ready for our fall rush, so we debuted it in the fall. We did it over the summer to make sure everything worked. Samsung and Apple [Pay] actually worked before the chips did, but everything was in place and finalized for this spring.”

According to cnet.com, Samsung Pay is available on newer and higher-end Samsung devices, such as the Galaxy S7 and S6 lines, as well as the Galaxy Note 5. It has limited functionality on the Gear S2 smartwatch because it can only be used on NFC terminals.

To use Samsung Pay, phones need to be on AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, US Cellular or Verizon mobile service carriers. In addition, Visa, MasterCard or American Express cards issued by Bank of America, Chase, Citibank, PNC, Synchrony Financial, US Bank or Wells Fargo are also required.

According to Apple’s website, Apple Pay can be used with several devices, including iPhone S6 and 7 devices, a handful of tablets and the Apple Watch. Cards from several dozen banks in the US are eligible to use with the service.

Research released by First Annapolis Consulting shows that, as of Sept. 2016, 89 percent of U.S. consumers with Apple Pay-compatible devices know of the mobile payment service since its inception in Sept. 2014.

By contrast, 54 percent of Samsung users show awareness of Samsung Pay, which rolled out a year later in Sept. 2015.

The same data shows that 31 percent of Apple users have used Apple Pay to make a purchase compared to 20 percent in December 2015, with 7 percent now using it once a week or more.

Samsung users are also acclimating themselves  to the newer Samsung Pay service, as 13 percent of those users have used the mobile pay service, with 4 percent total using it at least once per week.

Each service has had its share of minor security flaws. Business Insider reported that the encrypted token used at the point of purchase can be intercepted by specialty hardware. Security researcher Salvador Mendoza demonstrated on YouTube how this would be possible.

Samsung responded to this revelation, releasing a statement that declared the risk of such an interception, given that the hardware had to be present, was low enough, given the low likelihood of a successful attack.

Security journalist Brian Krebs has also brought to light security flaws with Apple Pay. Krebs said that length of verification time between the Apple Pay service and banks may enable hackers to use CVV codes (typically the three-digit security number on the back of a credit card) to link card data to Apple Pay mobile wallets.

Apple has a page on its website explaining the security of the service.

These broader concerns have had little to no effect on the IU Southeast bookstore. Faulds said the precautions taken to ensure security with their system.

“We don’t keep any credit card information on site,” Faulds said. “We tell everyone to keep their receipts because we don’t keep it to look up. Everything goes off-site. If you were going to use your Bursar charge account and your credit card on our website, only a few of us can even access it to print those payment forms.”

Barnes & Noble College has taken note of the issues that Target and other big companies have had with data breaches and is doing what it can to avoid the same by carefully watching remote credit card transactions and making sure there are no issues with them.

The integration of Apple Pay and Samsung Pay came from the bookstore’s parent company, Barnes & Noble College. According to the company’s research, 62 percent of students say stores that accept mobile payments are forward thinking, while 44 percent of students are interested in using the service more in the future. Based on that data, the marketing department made the call to implement those services.

Those options are not available to use on the bookstore website, however. The website accepts PayPal, UCard and credit cards. The company is holding off on it for now to ensure the option will be as secure online as it is in the store.

According to Ashley McKay, director of student accounting services, there may be a longer wait for Apple Pay and Samsung Pay to be integrated into other areas of IU Southeast.

“The benefit is that students have an additional option for payment,” McKay said. “It may be a more convenient method of payment for students that utilize that technology.”

McKay said that there are also many challenges. There are many standards to follow for credit card and debit card payments to ensure that payments and security are up to standard.

The university has to meet Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard compliance standards for accepting electronic payments and there is uncertainty as to how mobile pay would work with those. The pay services must be fully vetted through the university treasury department and approved as payment on all campuses in the IU system.

The university recently moved to online payments only for credit cards and debit cards to help ensure security of student card information. Those services include a convenience fee for that service, and such fees in association with mobile pay options would also have to be reviewed.

“Changes in payment acceptance are handled centrally through university administration in Bloomington,” McKay said. “Any change, like mobile pay, would have to be made at all campuses and approved through university administration. Security is a top concern for the university.”