Apple Pay Not Coming to Mexico Until 2021

Dont feel too bad my friends, we are still trying to get businesses on board just to accept it in the US. It’s getting a lot better but I still cant buy my second largest monthly expense with ApplePay around here, groceries. Some of the chains offer it but Kroger is still a no. Publix is a yes but the closest is 3 hours away. Cant get home improvement supplies either from Lowes or Home Depot. I dont shop Wal Mart much but they are still a NO.

It’s not just Apple Pay, it’s all the Pays. Those stores have deactivated the NFC readers in their card terminals in an attempt to force you to use their in-house digital payment system.

No thanks, I’ll just use my highest cash back rewards credit card and stick them with the highest interchange fee.

Well, it‘s mid-December.
Could be in 3 weeks...

Though they’re already paying the lowest possible rates, no doubt those NFC deniers would rather pay no card fees at all. They would love to get their hands on your ACH. So how did that go? Not well at all.

Turns out consumers are incredibly resistant to handing over their bank account info to stores. Given that they are forced by their own customers to take credit cards, why are they refusing customers contactless payment, esp. during a out of control pandemic?

I think you guys are over analyzing the issue. The fact is that unfortunately, Mexico is still a third world country, so the adoption of new technologies goes at a slow pace due to the costs that it means. As an example, I can tell you that barely just recently (2 months to date) Walmart has introduced self-service cashiers (in selected stores), while I have seen them in USA since several years ago. This fact along with the other fact that our president lives and governs as if we were in 1970....

Actually, a lot of people don’t have credit cards nor even a bank account, so millions transactions a day are made with cash.

Obviously, as a Mexican living in Mexico, I’m not proud of this backwardness, but is what it is, and I think is the main reason of what you are arguing.

Well, it‘s mid-December.
Could be in 3 weeks...

Or in 55....

Dont feel too bad my friends, we are still trying to get businesses on board just to accept it in the US. It’s getting a lot better but I still cant buy my second largest monthly expense with ApplePay around here, groceries. Some of the chains offer it but Kroger is still a no. Publix is a yes but the closest is 3 hours away. Cant get home improvement supplies either from Lowes or Home Depot. I dont shop Wal Mart much but they are still a NO.

I think you guys are over analyzing the issue. The fact is that unfortunately, Mexico is still a third world country, so the adoption of new technologies goes at a slow pace due to the costs that it means. As an example, I can tell you that barely just recently (2 months to date) Walmart has introduced self-service cashiers (in selected stores), while I have seen them in USA since several years ago. This fact along with the other fact that our president lives and governs as if we were in 1970....

Actually, a lot of people don’t have credit cards nor even a bank account, so millions transactions a day are made with cash.

Obviously, as a Mexican living in Mexico, I’m not proud of this backwardness, but is what it is, and I think is the main reason of what you are arguing.

Actually, I've paid with NFC in plenty of places in Mexico using Samsung Pay: 7-Eleven, Farmacias del Ahorro, Best Buy (RIP), Farmacias Guadalajara, Sams Club, Walmart, Liverpool, and many many smaller businesses with regular POS terminals, as well as the new smartphone connected terminals.
Mexico is more akin to Europe in card technology (we adopted chip+PIN security many years ago while the US was still in signature security). Around 9/10 terminals in Mexico have hardware compatibility with NFC, the hardest thing is to convince the operator (clerk, cashier, waiter...) to first input the transaction so we can use NFC.