Discover Announces Apple Pay Support Beginning This Fall

In related news, Discover sees a 500% increase in cardholders when 2 iPhone owners filled out the online application this morning...

Clearly you're missing out. Discover is one of the best cards out there. Very glad Apple Pay is coming!

Arghhhhh !! What a crock of POO !!!

One of the best selling points of the iPhone 6 in the UK was Apple Pay finally!

Yet we are now end of April and we still don't have this feature...oh and don't even get me started about Apple Radio !!!!!

False advertising Apple :( :(

Instead of complaining to Apple, you should complain to your bank.

Your bank is who is holding up adoption of Apple Pay in the UK. There was an article a few weeks ago about it: UK banks are dragging their feet. They have to make changes to their back-end systems to support the EMVCo tokenization standard.

Apple Radio has a similar problem: you should be complaining to your music licensing agencies in the UK. Apple can't stream music to your phone until the UK licensing agencies agree to a royalty rate for each song.

I think Discover is quite large. I can use mine anywhere I go, and I see quite a few people with them.

I had actually just sent a message on Friday about ApplePay support being necessary to keep me as a customer - so I guess I have my answer ;-)

In related news, Discover sees a 500% increase in cardholders when 2 iPhone owners filled out the online application this morning...

Yes! This is my main CC, I'll finally have a reason to use Apple pay.

Fantastic. Apple's current services strategy seems to have drifted away from 'lots of work and a big reveal' (which works well with hardware) and moved to 'work, update, work, update'. Look at Maps and Siri. Not a word on those at keynotes yet continual improvements and looks like Apple Pay is the same. :)

I want apple pay in the UK!

I wonder how big the Discover market is these days. I worked bars and restaurants in the 80s and 90s in a tourist town, when the card was in its heyday, and it was only rarely used then.

EDIT: Since a picture of AMEX is being used for this article, I suppose the lack of a stock photo for a Discover card might be a good indicator. Couldn't even Shop one in.

I have granted your wish.

Meh... Never used a Discover card, rarely ever see them and personally Do not know anyone who has one. I often fancied the idea of getting a discover card but could never justify it. I have other cards issued from various banks under Visa, MasterCard, and Amex. Discover has never really been able to outdo my other cards in benefits or purpose.

I love the 5% cashback and all the discounts through shopdiscover.com (Discover Deals).

I no longer have a Discover card but why will it take them all these months to get it working with Apple Pay?

The bank has to change their back-end systems to implement the EMVCo tokenization standard. That requires, but is not limited to these steps:

* When the user adds a card to Apple Pay, the bank validates the account and associates the new device account number (token) with the account.
* The bank must verify the user adding the card to Apple Pay is the actual user. Different banks use different methods -- those not using one are encountering higher rates of fraud.
* When the user uses Apple Pay at a merchant, the bank must confirm the transaction is valid. In addition to the usual account number, expiration date, etc.... the transaction contains a unique sequence number that is only valid for one transaction.
* The bank must map the token to the correct account number, and confirm sufficient funds/credit before authorizing the transaction.
* When the transaction actually posts to the account, the bank must again map the token to the account number.

You don't make changes like this to banking systems overnight. There's a long process of implementation and testing, and subsequent verification by auditors. This segment of the banking industry is VERY risk-adverse, so nothing happens quickly.

The only reason Apple Pay was rolled out in the US shortly after the iPhone 6 release was that partner banks had a long time to prepare. The EMVCo tokenization standard was published in March, 2014, but I suspect that Apple and the banks got the final draft long before that.

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why can't they just announce it like Discover has?

Discover has their own bank, and their own payment processing network. There are some partner banks that also issue Discover cards, but not nearly the number that issue Mastercard or Visa.