Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Solid point. If that’s really the case and you can’t change that behaviour, Apple Pay Cash is kinda stupid. Should go straight to your credit card.

I might have been a bit wrong about iTunes account, but the money does NOT go directly into the recipients bank account. It goes to the Apple Pay Cash card.

A bit down on the ApplePay page it says
When you receive money it’s added to your Apple Pay Cash card that lives in the Wallet app. You can start using the cash right away to make purchases using Apple Pay in stores, in apps, and on the web. You can also transfer your Apple Pay Cash balance to your bank account
 
  • Like
Reactions: Oberhorst
there are still major holdouts (Starbucks, just to name one.)

All standalone Starbucks stores in the US take contactless, and have for at least the past 12-18 months or so.

The ones that may not are licensed stores that are found within another business such as in a grocery store, airport, hotel etc.

But if you are a semi-regular customer you are better off using the Starbucks card and reloading via Apple Pay in the app.

I’m thinking Apple Pay here in Sweden should work in more places than those listed by Apple right? All that’s really required is that the terminal has an NFC reader correct? In that case it should work at say an ICA store. Guess I’ll have to test.

Yes, it should work at any NFC terminal. I used it at a restaurant in Stockholm a few weeks ago for a SEK 700 charge without issue. No PIN or signature required because it uses device verification.

The bigger issue in Sweden at the moment at least from what I could see as a visitor is although almost all terminal models are NFC-capable, th functionality has not yet been enabled at many of them. Hopefully this improves over time.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mizhou
But honestly, I understand the banks in Germany. It’s really hard to make money as a bank here because not many people take out debts to pay for stuff...

But in many other parts of the world, it looks something like this (including Denmark, where I live):
170302153010-chart-bank-profit-loss-780x439.jpg
 
Last edited:
Interesting graph. Where did you find this? Do they have that as well for german banks?

Animated by what I've read, I simply did a Google images search for something like "world bank profits graph" or "banking profits graph".

In other graphs I see that German banks are having a hard time making money.

Here are a few more graphs:

chart-big-four-banks27-profits-2004-2013-data.jpg



gr-dimon-01.png


https___www_moodys_com_researchdocumentcontentpage_aspx_docid_pbc_179277.png



But as Homer says:
CmN7lKAVEAAxaf8.jpg


: )
 
Animated by what I've read, I simply did a Google images search for something like "world bank profits graph" or "banking profits graph".

In other graphs I see that German banks are having a hard time making money.

Here are a few more graphs:

chart-big-four-banks27-profits-2004-2013-data.jpg



gr-dimon-01.png


https___www_moodys_com_researchdocumentcontentpage_aspx_docid_pbc_179277.png



But as Homer says:
CmN7lKAVEAAxaf8.jpg


: )

Haha. Well the last one is probably the most true one of all of them.
 
I use Apple Pay pretty much every day for buying coffee, food, gas... pretty much everything. I very rarely have to use the actual card, as my AMEX, MasterCard, and debit card all support Apple Pay. The added security is also very welcome.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mizhou
Yeah the laws for alcohol in the States are pretty lame considering you can go to war at 18 but can't drink legally until 21. Sorry your exposure to the States is via MA and hasn't been great. It is one of the least free states in the US.

Interestingly, back around 1971 when the protests against the Viet Nam draft were very strong, the drinking age dropped to 18 because it made no sense that soldiers could not legally drink. I know, because I turned 18 on the day the law went into effect :)

I wonder when it went back up to 21, and what the reasoning was?

That is one of the biggest issues I have with Apple Pay as well. Apple hardly provides anything but wants to take a huge cut of the earnings. Banks at least pay more taxes than Apple here

Yes, banks especially balk against supporting Apple Pay in countries where they already have contactless payments. So giving Apple a chunk of each purchase for doing absolutely nothing during a transaction, makes no business sense to them.

Especially since Apple wants 0.15%, and in many EU countries, the banks themselves are capped at 0.30%. Giving half your income to Apple for doing nothing except selling access to your own customers, must outrage bankers.

--
As for taxes, I'm always amazed that some people are okay with a foreign megacorporation like Apple wanting huge profits while paying very little local taxes, but then turn around and diss their own country's institutions for wanting profits while actually paying local taxes on those profits.

For example, in 2013 ANZ Bank made about AUS $6 billion in revenues, upon which they paid about $2 billion in Australian taxes... about 30%.

In 2013, Apple also made about $6 billion in Australia, but they paid less than $40 million in taxes (< 1%) because of their clever offshoring accounting. Almost all of the rest of the money left Australia.
 
Last edited:
I do think there is a lot of beautiful nature there and Americans are overall very friendly (you are a good example! :)). Not a place for young people to have too much fun but I can def imagine coming back one day for a nature holiday!

Haha glad to hear!
Interestingly, back around 1971 when the protests against the Viet Nam draft were very strong, the drinking age dropped to 18 because it made no sense that soldiers could not legally drink. I know, because I turned 18 on the day the law went into effect :)

I wonder when it went back up to 21, and what the reasoning was?

Unfortunately Congress decided to have states "voluntarily" raise their drinking age to 21 in the mid-80's by holding state highway funding hostage. All in the name of combating drunk driving.

Maybe they will raise the age now to 30 and it will completely go away :) /s
 
Especially since Apple wants 0.15%, and in many EU countries, the banks themselves are capped at 0.30%. Giving half your income to Apple for doing nothing except selling access to your own customers, must outrage bankers.

The banks and the card companies used to take big cuts of the sales, but they also had to take some responsibility for card frauds. If someone skimmed my card and bought something in my name, the money would first be withdrawn from my account, but I would also get refunded if I hadn't been careless with the card. A friend of mine went to Germany for some convention, and when he came back to Sweden and got his account statements, he saw a transaction for about 3000 SEK (then about 450 USD). He called the bank, and they refunded him all that money.

Because ApplePay is much more secure, then the number of card frauds will diminish. There is no card to skim or take photo of to get the card number and CCV, which means the banks and card issuers don't have to refund money for lots of frauds, but they still want to take the same big cut of each transaction, which will just increase their profits.

I can agree that Apple doesn't do much for each transaction, but neither do the banks. Their computers do the work with card transactions. Yes Apple takes a cut, but in the end the baks will profit from this, since their cut will be pure profit, when the possibility of card skimming and other vard fraud vanishes.
 
I can agree that Apple doesn't do much for each transaction, but neither do the banks. Their computers do the work with card transactions.

As you said, the banks do something to earn money per contactless transaction. Apple, OTOH, does zero zip nada nothing per transaction. Yet they want a percentage. It's purely a ransom fee so that banks can reach their own customers.

It would make some sense if Apple say, charged from ten to fifty cents one time to help register a new card. That's in line with what token providers charge for registration. But a percentage of each purchase when Apple already made a profit on selling the hardware?? That's not much different than if a plastic chip card maker demanded a percentage of each purchase using the cards they manufactured.

Now, where it WOULD make sense for Apple Pay to take a cut, is with in-app or online purchases done via Apple, because THEN Apple's servers are actually involved. And that kind of fraud (not in person) is huge in comparison to contactless.

Yes Apple takes a cut, but in the end the banks will profit from this, since their cut will be pure profit, when the possibility of card skimming and other card fraud vanishes.

Credit transactions will never be "pure profit" for banks, since the bank still handles the risk of a cardholder not paying their debt, or at least taking a long time to do so, which costs money as well.

Fraud is a different kind of risk, and as for fraud with contactless purchases, the cost is already much lower than what Apple wants.

For instance, in the UK, contactless card fraud has risen sharply and is now accounting for 2.7p per £100 spent via contactless cards. That's still a fraction of the 15p per £100 that Apple usually demands.

Ditto for other major countries I checked.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ArneK
For instance, in the UK, contactless card fraud has risen sharply and is now accounting for 2.7p per £100 spent via contactless cards. That's still a fraction of the 15p per £100 that Apple usually demands.

Ditto for other major countries I checked.

Interesting. I would assume most credit card fraud is happening online without an actual card present...
 
... But a percentage of each purchase when Apple already made a profit on selling the hardware?? That's not much different than if a plastic chip card maker demanded a percentage of each purchase using the cards they manufactured.
...
A great analogy! A classic case of cutting into someone else's value chain.

I guess adoption will come down to if Nordic banks believe the Apple brand will add more money than they take away in the fee. You'll have to look at it as a marketing fee more than an actual service fee.
 
  • Like
Reactions: kdarling
A friend of mine tested it at ICA today via his Apple Watch. Said it worked perfectly.
I wrote a few days ago that it didn’t work at the ICA store I went. Well it turns out that was my fault. The NFC sensor in ICA terminals is on the side, so it works just fine. I actually started paying attention to the terminals and there are **** loads of those around.

Curious American here. What about a driver's license/ID? Do you forgo the wallet and just carry that with your phone?
You only need your driver’s licence when you drive or to pick up a something from the post office that requires ID. On all other occasions you don’t have to carry one.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mizhou and Otaviano
I wrote a few days ago that it didn’t work at the ICA store I went. Well it turns out that was my fault. The NFC sensor in ICA terminals is on the side, so it works just fine. I actually started paying attention to the terminals and there are **** loads of those around.


You only need your driver’s licence when you drive or to pick up a something from the post office that requires ID. On all other occasions you don’t have to carry one.

Good that it works, now if only SEB would hurry up.

As for the drivers license/Id (even passport) there is really no excuse that we don’t digitize it. The technology is there to make a digital version that is secure.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mizhou
You only need your driver’s licence when you drive or to pick up a something from the post office that requires ID. On all other occasions you don’t have to carry one.

Ah, well you see, that's the thing.

In America, except for a few cities like NYC, everyone above the age of 16 or so drives everywhere.

So here we need a license with us constantly. No one leaves home without one.
 
I wrote to Swedbank regarding Apple Pay and they answered:
Det är många spännande tjänster på gång just nu och vi följer utveckligen av de flesta. Jag har ingen information om vi kommer gå med i Apple Pay eller när i nuläget.
So in short they don't regard Apple Pay as something special, just another payment "service". Synd.
But feel free to write them as well so they know we want it.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.