With the list of Apple Pay-supported companies growing more every week, Apple has revealed that the new mobile payments service now supports cards representing about 90 percent of the credit card purchase volume in the United States. This is up from the 80 percent figure cited at Apple Pay's launch just two months ago.
According to The New York Times, Apple Pay has proven popular with users as the rollout continues. Whole Foods saw more than 150,000 Apple Pay transactions in the first few days after release, and the service accounted for more than 50 percent of McDonald's tap-to-pay purchases in November.
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The news comes on the soft launch day of Apple Pay support at TD Bank in the U.S., adding to the growing list of banks supporting the e-payments solution. The U.S. subsidiary of the Canadian bank is just another in a long line of companies with high hopes that Apple's electronic payments solution will be the first widely adopted, according to industry analyst Patrick Moorhead.
“Retailers and payment companies see Apple Pay as the implementation that has the best chance at mass consumer adoption, which has eluded prior attempts,” said Moorhead, president of Moor Insights & Strategy, a research firm. “They believe it will solve many of the problems they had before with electronic payments.”
One of the newest retailers to support the service is Amway Center, the home of the Orlando Magic basketball team, which announced support for Apple Pay will launch officially this Friday. Chief Executive of the Orlando Magic, Alex Martins, remarked that long lines keep customers from buying food at concession stands. He has hopes that, "This, and technologies like Apple Pay, will speed up our service.”
Top Rated Comments
Freaking Discover card is not supported. It's on Discover of course.
It takes a company like Apple to come into this market and shake the whole thing up. They've made a service & they've made it right first time. That is the key to success to Apple Pay.
Probably nothing to do with bandwidth. Payment processing is a minefield & it requires the co-operation with banks, merchants & acquirers. Probably just the fact that deals haven't been signed. I heard February 2015 though somewhere, not sure how true that is.
Smaller banks and credit unions usually outsource their credit card processing to someone else. It's just a matter of time until those vendors support this.
The smaller banks and credit unions have to demand it -- a lot of them fell behind in the rapid shift to internet banking, and I don't think they want to repeat that.
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From the terminal's point of view, your phone is just a contactless card. It doesn't know anything about your touch ID. You'll have to enter a PIN if you press the debit button. And, you will still have to sign if you press the credit button (unless the merchant has dispensation to skip that step).
As the US switches over to chipped cards, the card will have the ability to specify the allowable authentication methods. For most US cards, it will be signature first, then PIN second (if at all). Hopefully, there is already a device authentication method (like Touch ID), which effectively says: I've already authenticated the user. If the iPhone can use that, and terminals be programmed to recognize it, you wouldn't have to sign or enter a PIN.