Apple Pay Gains Over 50 New U.S. Banks and Credit Unions

[MacRumors]

Apple updated its Apple Pay participating issuers list today with 51 additional banks, credit unions and financial institutions supporting the contactless payment service in the United States. Apple Pay now has over 950 participating issuers nationwide, and several more plan to support the NFC-based mobile payment service in the future.

The newly added Apple Pay participating issuers are reflected below, although it's worth noting that some banks, credit unions and financial institutions listed may have already had support for the contactless payments service and are only now being reflected on Apple's website.

The full list of new Apple Pay participating issuers:
Achieve Financial Credit Union
Advantage Federal Credit Union
Alloy Federal Credit Union
Altoona First Savings Bank
Altura Credit Union
Amalgmated Bank of Chicago
Associated Credit Union of Texas
Bank of Ann Arbor
Beehive Federal Credit Union
Brand Banking Company
Business Bank of St. Louis
Capitol Credit Union
Charlotte State Bank & Trust
Citizens Bank (AL)
Citizens Savings Bank
Community Credit Union
Credit Union of Texas
Earthmover Credit Union
Employment Security Credit Union
Family Trust Federal Credit Union
First Community Bank of Beemer
First Interstate Bank
First Service Federal Credit Union
First State Community Bank
Fort Community Credit Union
Georgia Bank and Trust
HomeStar and Financial Services
Houston Highway Credit Union
IDB-IIC Federal Credit Union
Katahdin Federal Credit Union
Lion's Share Federal Credit Union
Mainstreet Community Bank of Florida
Marine Bank & Trust
Marine Federal Credit Union
Monona State Bank
Navy Army Community Credit Union
Northway Bank
Plaza Park State Bank
Reliant Community Credit Union
Security Bank and Trust Company
Silver State Schools Credit Union
Spencer County Bank
Summit Community Bank
Sundance State Bank
The Commerce Bank of Washington
Tioga State Bank
Torrance Community Credit Union
Total Community Credit Union
Triangle Credit Union
United Community Bank
USNY Bank

Apple is committed to an international expansion of Apple Pay, having launched the mobile payments service in Australia and Canada in November in partnership with American Express. Apple Pay is also coming to Hong Kong, Singapore and Spain this year, and the service will launch in China in early 2016 in partnership with UnionPay.

Apple Pay gained support for BJ's Wholesale Club private label credit cards and 66 new U.S. issuers on December 15, plus nearly another 60 issuers on January 5. On the merchant side, Cinnabon, Chili's, Domino's, KFC and Starbucks will support Apple Pay in the U.S. starting this year.

Article Link: Apple Pay Gains Over 50 New U.S. Banks and Credit Unions

 

[oddnendz]

It looks that, according to the NC SECU website, NC State Employees' Credit Union has added Apple Pay and Samsung Pay. Finally.....

 

[macnewbie91]

I see American merchants are still being pathetic.

0 new merchants. When was the last time a new merchant partnered with Apple Pay?

 

[jayducharme]

When was the last time a new merchant partnered with Apple Pay?

Since my local bank finally got on board with Apple Pay, I've been using it every chance I get. Unfortunately, that hasn't been very often. I'm really stunned by the number of big vendors who won't allow for Apple Pay. Walmart is obvious. But my local Barnes & Noble doesn't offer it. In fact, I'd estimate perhaps 20% of the stores in my area have NFC, let alone Apple Pay. And even at those that do offer it, there are numerous quirks. Transactions at Staples keep getting rejected. My grocery store insists I sign for Apple Pay transactions (which is a bizarre request given how non-secure a signature is compared with Apple Pay). Perhaps Apple is hoping that with a critical mass of banks on board, vendors will have to support it more widely.

 

[mrbrown]

I see American merchants are still being pathetic.

0 new merchants. When was the last time a new merchant partnered with Apple Pay?

All of my locally owned grocery stores started taking NFC payments, including Apple Pay. They're not "partnered" with Apple, per se... they just upgraded their POS units.

 

[flyingember]

I see American merchants are still being pathetic.

0 new merchants. When was the last time a new merchant partnered with Apple Pay?

Partnering isn't necessary for it to work with Apply Pay. There's a lot of places enabling it that aren't partnering with Apple.

I was at a CVS with NFC turned on. It wasn't setup properly, it prompted me to insert the chip instead, but it was turned on.

 

[perealb]

I see American merchants are still being pathetic.

0 new merchants. When was the last time a new merchant partnered with Apple Pay?

The list is growing:
http://www.apple.com/apple-pay/where-to-use-apple-pay/

 

[kdarling]

My grocery store insists I sign for Apple Pay transactions (which is a bizarre request given how non-secure a signature is compared with Apple Pay).

Signatures help with liability. If there's a dispute, the store stands better with one.

They also might not have updated their terminal software to allow on-device user verification.

Perhaps Apple is hoping that with a critical mass of banks on board, vendors will have to support it more widely.

Banks aren't nearly as important as getting the users on board. IIRC, less than 1% (~ 3 million) of the US population regularly try to use Apple Pay. That's a fair number of people, but not critical mass for merchants, especially since many of the current purchases are at places like McDonalds or Whole Foods.

Perhaps in a few years more people will have a smartphone with NFC payment capability, and things will finally take off.

 

[jayducharme]

Banks aren't nearly as important as getting the users on board.

But it seems like those go hand in hand. If your bank doesn't support Apple Pay, you can't use it. So the banks have to come first before users can benefit.

 

[WigWag Workshop]

The few places locally I do shop at, still do not have Apple Pay yet.

 

[hofer]

All of my locally owned grocery stores started taking NFC payments, including Apple Pay. They're not "partnered" with Apple, per se... they just upgraded their POS units.

I wish it was so here in Houston. Except for Whole Paycheck and Trader Joes, none of the major grocery stores take Apple Pay. HEB has NFC Readers at all their POS units, but they are turned off.

 

[BurgDog]

Meh. I made a real good faith attempt to get on board with this. More hassle than it is worth everywhere I tried to use it. Doesn't work on drive-thrus. Most places I shop don't accept it. Walgreens fumbles with rewards card then takes two attempts, first attempt always fails, to recognize card when using Apple Watch. Embarrassing. At least with Walgreens have Express Pay with card on file for prescriptions and stuff bought at same time. I've given up. Credit card for small purchases doesn't require a signature and is actually quicker to use in most cases. Pointless tech with little reason to use it.

 

[jayducharme]

I attempted Apple Pay twice today. At Staples, my iPhone said the transaction went through but the clerk said it was rejected. I had to swipe my card instead. At Radio Shack, their terminal claimed to accept Apple Pay. When I attempted it there, it turned out they didn't even have an NFC terminal installed, and the clerk was completely unaware they even supposedly accepted Apple Pay.

I wonder if it would do any good to simply cancel the transaction and leave the store if Apple Pay fails or is non-existent. Then again, most of the clerks couldn't care less.

 

[flyingember]

At Radio Shack, their terminal claimed to accept Apple Pay. When I attempted it there, it turned out they didn't even have an NFC terminal installed, and the clerk was completely unaware they even supposedly accepted Apple Pay.

I don't think "supposed to" is true any more.

Radio Shack is not the same company. They sold everything including the name effective middle of last year.

I expect they're going to largely become Sprint stores that happens to sell some other items over time.

 

[AManInACan]

The list is growing:
http://www.apple.com/apple-pay/where-to-use-apple-pay/

Another place to find "contactless payment" which in most cases supports Apple Pay:
https://www.mastercard.us/en-us/consumers/features-benefits/contactless/contactless-locator.html

 

[kaldezar]

Meh. I made a real good faith attempt to get on board with this. More hassle than it is worth everywhere I tried to use it. Doesn't work on drive-thrus. Most places I shop don't accept it. Walgreens fumbles with rewards card then takes two attempts, first attempt always fails, to recognize card when using Apple Watch. Embarrassing. At least with Walgreens have Express Pay with card on file for prescriptions and stuff bought at same time. I've given up. Credit card for small purchases doesn't require a signature and is actually quicker to use in most cases. Pointless tech with little reason to use it.

Perhaps if you lived in a more advanced country like the UK, you would find that many merchants accept Apple Pay and 99% of the time it works flawlessly. It's hard to believe that many merchants in the US still require a signature despite implementing chip and PIN, a totally pointless waste of time.

 

[Sasparilla]

....It's hard to believe that many merchants in the US still require a signature despite implementing chip and PIN, a totally pointless waste of time.

It really is, but good to point out they adopted Chip and Signature here in the U.S.....the yanks had to leave the security part off, with all the retail credit card fraud it would've made too much sense to finish the job and implement it.

 

[ActionableMango]

Banks aren't nearly as important as getting the users on board.

No, by definition the banks must come first. I personally would be on board, but my bank doesn't support it yet.

Pointless tech with little reason to use it.

Absolutely not pointless.

Apple Pay uses a 1-time secure token for your purchase. Remember all those stolen credit card hacks in the last couple of years? Target? Home Depot? Credit card processing agencies? That's impossible with Apple Pay because your credit card number isn't given to the retailer at all and the token that is provided is only good for a single use.

If Apple Pay is slower than a swipe/insert + signature, that's not the inherent fault of Apple Pay, it's a pos POS. There are good POS setups that are quite fast. Those shops just don't have their act together.

 

[BurgDog]

Absolutely not pointless.

Apple Pay uses a 1-time secure token for your purchase. Remember all those stolen credit card hacks in the last couple of years? Target? Home Depot? Credit card processing agencies? That's impossible with Apple Pay because your credit card number isn't given to the retailer at all and the token that is provided is only good for a single use.

If Apple Pay is slower than a swipe/insert + signature, that's not the inherent fault of Apple Pay, it's a pos POS. There are good POS setups that are quite fast. Those shops just don't have their act together.

Security improvements are no benefit to me. I'm not on the hook for fraud and it doesn't matter why transactions are more complex than using a credit card, they just are and I don't need to tolerate that just to use the latest tech. Maybe they will get their act together and make my life easier in the future, until then just a pointless toy.