When I bought my iPad last month I finally understood what Bluetooth technology was all about. You see I bought this really cool cover by Kensington that had a Bluetooth keyboard. It talks to my iPod without the aid of wires! Amazing!

Don’t judge! Today technologies are named things like “blue” + “tooth” and we’re supposed to magically figure out what that means?

So now I’m trying to understand Near Field Communication, and Steve Jobs’ obsession with adding it to the next generation iPhone and what that has to do with credit unions. At least the words make some sense. Look at this illustration.

No one disrupts industries better than Jobs. Think about it, the iPad is not something that we needed, and if you remember the early press – that anyone was supposed to want.

And yet, with one simple device Apple made the following industries obsolete:

1. record stores
2. video stores
3. book publishers
4. television
5. cameras
6. telephones (Facetime)

And the following products

1. photo albums
2. playing cards
3. board games
4. CD players
5. phone books
6. address books

and the list goes on and on…..

I have feared for years that someone like Jobs or Bezos would “iPod” this old beast we call banking. I mean we are ripe for revolution. And after the “too big to fail” bank bailouts and economic collapse, people are mad as hell. The sacred cow of banking may be ready for the grill.

When the e-wallet debuts in all of its Apple glory – will it make us obsolete? It could make debit cards irrelevant, right? The key to this is the payment system that already exists in iTunes.

According to a Tech Crunch article:

The main goal for Apple would be to get a piece of the $6.2 trillion Americans spend each year on goods and services. Today, the company pays credit-card processing fees on every purchase from iTunes. By encouraging consumers to use cheaper methods – such as tapping into their bank accounts directly, which is how many purchases are made via PayPal – Apple could cut its own costs and those of retailers selling Apple’s products.

That makes me believe that we are still needed. We are the authorized movers of money after all.

The Federal Reserve System will keep us safe.  According to my friend Wiki Pedia:

Their duty is to conduct the nation’s monetary policy, supervise and regulate banking institutions, maintain the stability of the financial system and provide financial services to depository institutions, the US government, and foreign official institutions.

Whew. And they are doing a bang up job.