Comment: One-time codes are the Apple Pay secret weapon that’s just a little too secret

Much has been written about the convenience of Apple Pay, especially on an Apple Watch. Instead of reaching into your pocket or bag for your wallet, and extracting the card you want to use, you can simply double-click the side button on the Watch and hold out your wrist.

But there’s one aspect of Apple Pay that I’ve always felt fails to get the full attention it deserves: the fact that it never hands over your card details to retailers. Even on Apple’s own microsite, the feature is buried in a paragraph whose heading is about the use of fingerprints.

Yet the list of major chains who have seen customer card details compromised is virtually a Who’s Who of retailing and the hotel trade. Acer, Carphone Warehouse, CVS Photo, Eddie Bauer, Hilton, Home Depot, K-Mart, Marriott Hotels, Michaels, Neiman Marcus, P.F. Chang’s, Staples, Starwood Hotels, SuperValu, Target, Trump Hotels and Wendy’s. That’s even before we get into the Oracle hack that may have exposed almost every US credit card …