Apple to take on PayPal, plans to enter the mobile payments business

Apple has already laid the groundwork for a strong mobile payments service. The Cupertino-based tech giant has sold well over 500 million iPhones and iPads to date. The company has hundreds of millions of credit cards on file for its iTunes stores. If you own an iPhone 5S, it can use your fingerprint to confirm purchases. With iBeacon, it can even determine where you are inside a store.

Apple Inc. is laying the groundwork for an expanded mobile-payments service, leveraging its growing base of iPhone and iPad users and the hundreds of millions of credit cards on file through its iTunes stores. Eddy Cue, Apple’s iTunes and App Store chief and a key lieutenant of Chief Executive Tim Cook, has met with industry executives to discuss Apple’s interest in handling payments for physical goods and services on its devices, according to people familiar with the situation. In another sign of the company’s interest, Apple moved Jennifer Bailey, a longtime executive who was running its online stores, into a new role to build a payment business within the technology giant, three people with knowledge of the move said.