alt Hacker NewsMan, its amazing how confident you are about this, considering I know individual people who independently work at Visa, Mastercard, AND Apple, who have worked on mobile payments who independently confirm that none of them know any personal info and that its all pass-through.
So, are you sure you know what you are talking about?
This kind of appeal to authority [believe me because I say so!] doesn't really add much information, does it?
The report, above, is that previous transactions are visible within Apple's payment app. Apple agrees[1]. I'm willing to accept that this observation is based on reality and that it is reported in good faith.
Meanwhile, the suggestion is that Apple has no knowledge of transaction history.
Is there a way in which these two seemingly-conflicting concepts can be constructively combined into an understandable whole?
[1]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/104954
(For my part, I've never used Apple Pay and it's possible that I never will. I do not have a dog in this race.)