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Apple Partnering With American Express to Bring Apple Pay to Canada, Australia, Spain, Singapore and Hong Kong
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After living in Spain for 16 years & having a Spanish issued Amex card. The card IS accepted in MOST retailers/bars etc. and I only ever experienced problems in small establishments and local stores, places I would use cash anyway.
Most of the people I know in Spain have Amex cards and use them without problems, and as for Apples market share in Spain. I worked for a large Spanish company (over 6000 staff) with 90% mac hardware and even corporate iPhones and that was 3 years ago!
All of my friends and people I know in Spain have iPads/Macs/iPhones/AppleTVs. and I would really need to sit down and think who, if any I knew with a PC.
In short, I think this is a smart move on Apples part getting Amex on board first, also a great way of giving Amex users an exclusive deal in places that
PAY has not yet officially arrived.
This should be taken at face value as a good business move for both parties, irrelevant of your views on Amex and hidden racist remarks about Spain.
Most of the people I know in Spain have Amex cards and use them without problems, and as for Apples market share in Spain. I worked for a large Spanish company (over 6000 staff) with 90% mac hardware and even corporate iPhones and that was 3 years ago!
All of my friends and people I know in Spain have iPads/Macs/iPhones/AppleTVs. and I would really need to sit down and think who, if any I knew with a PC.
In short, I think this is a smart move on Apples part getting Amex on board first, also a great way of giving Amex users an exclusive deal in places that
PAY has not yet officially arrived. This should be taken at face value as a good business move for both parties, irrelevant of your views on Amex and hidden racist remarks about Spain.
As an Australian who has had an American Express card for about a year now, I can say that it's accepted in most locations and without extra fees, so I'm not sure where people are getting the opposite idea from (maybe they've never had an American Express card).
For example, all the big stores and supermarkets do (and again, with no surcharge)... Coles, Woolies, Kmart, Target, Big W, the petrol stations, Bunnings... even my health insurance does. And Apple itself, of course, including the iTunes store. I've had a Visa card for about 20 years but I find myself using the American Express card most of the time now (because it gives me better rewards points). Admittedly I did not expect that to be the case when I got the card.
The exceptions in Australia are usually smaller shops and cafes. I know my local cafe only accepts Visa and MasterCard, for example, which makes sense (everyone knows American Express charges a larger merchant fee, so it'd hit them harder on the smaller transactions amounts).
So I think getting Apple Pay up and running with American Express for Australia is actually a really big deal. Even if you don't have an American Express card, the advantage is that it's going to put a little bit more pressure on the Aussie banks to pull their finger out, which can only be a good thing!
For example, all the big stores and supermarkets do (and again, with no surcharge)... Coles, Woolies, Kmart, Target, Big W, the petrol stations, Bunnings... even my health insurance does. And Apple itself, of course, including the iTunes store. I've had a Visa card for about 20 years but I find myself using the American Express card most of the time now (because it gives me better rewards points). Admittedly I did not expect that to be the case when I got the card.
The exceptions in Australia are usually smaller shops and cafes. I know my local cafe only accepts Visa and MasterCard, for example, which makes sense (everyone knows American Express charges a larger merchant fee, so it'd hit them harder on the smaller transactions amounts).
So I think getting Apple Pay up and running with American Express for Australia is actually a really big deal. Even if you don't have an American Express card, the advantage is that it's going to put a little bit more pressure on the Aussie banks to pull their finger out, which can only be a good thing!
I think in addition to the rates - they are worried long term about having a company in between them and their customers. People may start to look at Apple as part of their banking experience - and I think it's the law we're only allowed to have 5 banks
I think in addition to the rates - they are worried long term about having a company in between them and their customers. People may start to look at Apple as part of their banking experience - and I think it's the law we're only allowed to have 5 banks
Seems to me the foreign banks are using Apple's cut on the rates (1/7th of 1% as reported) as a smokescreen for their real fear, to your point, that an American company as large as Apple could wedge themselves in between the customer relationship. I'm not in the industry but the rate would seem fair to me if it relieves the banks from magstripe fraud. Flashing your physical credit card with your bank's image does not hold the same value thru a smartphone, where the bank is relegated to the background in the physical device. And if the customer's appreciation of the bank were to fade into the background with that, well perhaps it is a short leap for Apple to become a virtual bank/intermediary and displace the former. That may be just conjecture but what are facts is that Apple is known for controlling the customer relationship and banks by and large are beasts slow to adapt and provide poor customer experience.
Those businesses that do not accept American Express typically don't have the kind of customers American Express typically targets.
You'd find more American Express acceptance at higher end clothing stores, fancier restaurants, and places with large profit margins, such as an Apple Store.
I'm from America and wish I could even get an American Express card, but unfortunately I made some young and dumb mistakes, so I'll have to do a bit of cleaning up before I can qualify for one.
American Express mostly targets American Consumers, so why would you assume the company will go under because most people in Australia don't use one of their cards?
With the amount of money Donald Trump and other rich people put into Amex's pocket from interchange and annual fees, they're not even close to going out of business.
Here in America, more and more places are accepting Amex by the day, and the benefits provide a great advantage to those consumers.
Having 2 Amex cards in Canada I know the Tap and Go does not, for the most part, work at most terminals. Using your US Amex and Pay here in Canada must mean there is a different payment system via NFC.
Q: Do US and CDN Amex cards use the same NFC payments system?
OR Does Pay solve our Tap and Go problem with Amex CDN cards?
Last year I thought I read that not all Amex cards were able to be used with Pay at the launch. Does any one remember this?
OK, great, but when will we see AMEX In-App Apple Pay in UK (I have no ideea if it works in US) ? They promised that we will have this with IOS 9, but it still doesn't work.
I believe you're talking about the corporate cards, which are now compatible with Apple Pay.
Who knows if their centurion cards are compatible with Apple Pay, though. If I had a centurion card, I wouldn't even use Apple Pay.
Its funny that American Express has Home Hardware listed as one of its double points vendors, you would think they accept it across the board if they use it as one of their "pick 5" vendors. https://www.americanexpress.com/ca/en/content/our-cards/choice/merchant-list.html#
Now Starbucks is somewhere I visit a lot and I have never ran into a Starbucks in Canada or the USA that doesn't take Amex, not saying your small store does take it but for the most part Starbucks do take Amex.
no, that's not the issue. AmEx tap-to-pay and AmEx Apple Pay use exactly the same system and work in exactly the same places. It's also the same in US and the rest of the world. That's why Apple Pay on US cards works anywhere in the world where tap-to-pay works.
the issue is that most places in Canada that do accept AmEx and have NFC capable terminals don't have NFC enabled for AmEx. Probably because of low demand. Just like yourself I found that AmEx tap-to-pay hardly works anywhere in Canada. The same awaits AmEx Apple pay once it arrives, at least in the beginning.
Thx, I was just wondering why GristlyBear could use is US Amex in Montreal?
Also, the Australian American Express website says that bank issued AMEX cards will not be able to be used for Pay.
Both Starbucks and Home Hardware are franchised so it really depends on the owners of the particular store you are in. They probably have some general guidelines of what to accept but I assume they are not mandatory. To be sure this changes overtime so it's possible I have somewhat outdated info. I did investigate this issue quite thoroughly around the time Costco discontinued their AmEx. I wanted to see if it was worth getting another AmEx so I made a careful check of which stores that I regularly visit take it and which of those have AmEx tap-to-pay enabled. That's where my list comes from. and the worst part was that places like Metro that did take AmEx and had tap-to-pay for MC didn't have it working for AmEx.
I hope your neighbor is either wrong or just has out of date information. I'm still being hopeful that there are more banks to follow and Amex was only mentioned as a more global roll-out.
Still wondering when DNS entries for applepay.ca will show up or when apple.ca/apple-pay isn't a "page not found" message. Until then, I will remain hopeful.
All Amex cards are compatible with Apple Pay, even the refillable Serve cards work.
I use my personal Amex Blue card with Apple Pay all the time. It's my default card.
Since when do the Serve cards work?
You're a lucky bastard though... I want the blue or everyday preferred card, mainly because of the rewards, but also because it's a beautiful, translucent card.
My bad.. the refillable cards do not work.Since when do the Serve cards work?
You're a lucky bastard though... I want the blue or everyday preferred card, mainly because of the rewards, but also because it's a beautiful, translucent card.
Just rechecked... Serve cards work with Android Pay, but not Apple Pay.
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Fair enough, I agree that all stores in these chains may not accept AmEx just because the stores I have visited do.
https://www.americanexpress.com/au/content/apple-pay/
Can't work with bank-issued ones since that would require cooperation from the banks.
right, the issuer of the credit card, be it AmEx, Visa or MC has to support Apple Pay on back end. Banks in Australia don't want to do that at the moment which is why bank issued Australian AmEx cards won't support Apple Pay for now. For the cards issued directly by AmEx, AmEx provides the back end directly so the cooperation of the banks is not required.
But for the front end at the point of sale all that matters is that the merchant payment terminal has tap-to-pay enabled for AmEx. Then it will support Apple Pay on your AmEx provided the issuer of the card has enabled Apple Pay on the back end. and it doesn't matter which country the card is from. An Australian AmEx card supporting Apple Pay will work in US and vice versa.
I was excited about this, but then I read -
https://www.americanexpress.com/au/content/apple-pay/
edit - Beaten just above
https://www.americanexpress.com/au/content/apple-pay/
Will my Card work with Apple Pay?
All Australian American Express issued Cards will be eligible to use Apple Pay. This includes American Express issued Personal, Small Business and Corporate Cards.
Bank issued American Express Cards will not be supported at this time.
So my CommBank AMEX won't work. Only normal American Express cards are supported at this stage All Australian American Express issued Cards will be eligible to use Apple Pay. This includes American Express issued Personal, Small Business and Corporate Cards.
Bank issued American Express Cards will not be supported at this time.
edit - Beaten just above