Dive Brief:

• PayPal took out an assertive full-page ad in the New York Times Tuesday questioning the security of Apple’s new payment system, Apple Pay.

• The ad reads: "We the people want our money safer than our selfies," a reference to the major iCloud hack that exposed nude photos from many celebrities’ iPhones.

• The move is an indication of Apple Pay’s threat to PayPal and of the growing competition in the mobile-payment space.

Dive Insight:

A full-page ad challenging Apple’s new Apple Pay mobile payment app is a highly assertive move by PayPal, and a risky one. After all, any payment system, including PayPal, could be vulnerable to hacks and other security issues.

In the long run, this kind of bickering and raising the specter of stolen data could undermine mobile-payment acceptance by already gun-shy consumers. In any case this shows that mobile payment systems are beginning to elbow each other in what is becoming an increasingly competitive space.