Apple Pay Now Supports Cards Representing 90% of U.S. Credit Card Purchase Volume

[ctyrider]

That "90% penetration" number makes for great headlines but is highly misleading.

The fact of the matter is that a very tiny fraction of merchants accept ApplePay. I live in a major metro area and so far the only place where I was able to use ApplePay was McDonalds. And even that is hit or miss - only certain card readers of card readers at my local McD worked with iPhones.

It's a long way to go before we get anywhere near the level of adaption the headlines like this would lead you to believe.

 

[reubs]

I just got an email from my credit union that said this,

"If we do offer this, it is a least a year away. We have also heard that not many Financial Institutions are offering this and a lot of the big merchants Walmart, Target, ETC…. are not accepting this. If you have any more questions please let me know."

I don't know what the limitations/costs are for offering Apple Pay, and maybe it's cost prohibitive for a small-time credit union to support. That email and policy, though, seems short-sighted and defeatist.

Anyone know what it costs the institution to offer and support this service? I don't want the hassle of switching banks just for Apple Pay, but I might consider it.

 

[k1121j]

I'm still on a quest to find that elusive NFC vending machine. Anybody know of any place in the New England area that has one?

same here let me know

 

[JHankwitz]

Again, business don't have to support ApplePay. They just have to have a contactless payment system and it will work. That is of course not the case with CVS and Wal-Mart who have intentionally turned theirs off to avoid this "work around".

And this is exactly why I switched to Walgreens and Target.

 

[cerote]

If any of my cards actually worked with ApplePay I would use it. But none of my cards are accepted yet.

 

[ecschwarz]

same here let me know

I found a lot of those tended to be at malls or other places where the vending machines are easily accessible and get lots of use. That might help in finding them, but I've tried it and it works quite well (it was a Coke machine).

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Isn't Kroger part of that group along with CVS that is working with that "alternative" to Apple Pay? I was wondering that too because I shop at Harris Teeter a lot, which is owned by Kroger, and they don't have any contactless payment systems in place.

Kroger doesn't appear to be part of MCX, but does seem to be on the fence about if they're going to support it. It seems the Kroger near me has Verifone MX925s or MX915s, but they didn't light up for NFC when I tried (self-checkout). The Verifone data sheets show both have NFC, although the MX925 can also use an optional external antenna. Perhaps they had NFC turned off? A friend had the same thing happen at a Bath & Body Works in a mall (she goes "it's the same readers Panera has", so she tried her phone, but no luck).

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It is pretty much useless to me. None of the retailers that I use on a regular basis supports it. Where is Kroger, Trader Joe, Home Depot, Lowes, gas stations?

Kroger is still "evaluating" if they want to support it. Trader Joe's (at least by me) has ancient terminals in a lot of locations, so that might be an upgrade situation. Home Depot works at a lot of locations (there are threads), but some people have had trouble with MasterCards. Lowes probably won't because they're an MCX member. As for gas stations, that's a real crapshoot - some have NFC terminals inside of the store, but only a few have NFC on the pumps themselves (I use it at the Meijer ones a lot).

 

[flyingember]

If you read the details NFC and contactless EMV use the same antennas, same protocols, everything. c
It's why everyone else that mentions having NFC has contactless, because they went EMV a long time ago.

NFC is technically two way whereas EMV is one-way. it has a little more technology involved.

There's even some info out there that Apple Pay is actually an EMV payment or that it can support the tech. makes total sense given they will eventually support more countries that do use contactless EMV. My guess is they negotiate the payment method in the handshake and support both types. that the two-way aspect of NFC means someday iphones will be able to handle receiving money natively. if you don't understand why you should know that 100% of debit cards can accept money (reverse ATM, it's how you get a refund onto your card) and about half the cards can do so instantly.

knowing contactless is coming why buy readers without the antenna and need to replace every reader nationwide in a few years? places keep readers for 10+ years. everyone beyond a 1-3 terminals will be buying NFC capable readers in 2015. The October 2015 deadline doesn't actually require contactless EMV be setup, but I would count on payment system creators to include it enabled by default as it would be hard to say you're reducing fraud by turning off part of the technology. is the kind of things lawyers love to include in trials to show negligence.

Imagine this going against Walmart + CurrentC. "the defendant purposefully disabled a secure internationally standard payment system in favor of one they helped develop. their system which my client used caused my client's checking account drained as a result. my client should be reimbursed and receive damages for the resulting credit impact, time spent" etc, etc

oh, and there's one entry into the NFC hardware market that's a big deal. Square. They take $100 million in sales some days now. They're in the realm of CVS, that's how big a number that is. They have super cost effective payment systems and this will mean a huge uptick in Apple Pay capable stores. With as few stores literally supporting Apple Pay only a tiny percentage of Square clients would need to buy these new registers to double the number of places taking Apple Pay


http://appleinsider.com/articles/14...-pay-with-new-nfc-compatible-hardware-in-2015

 

[MacOG728893]

I always hear shady stories about Discover...!

Never had an issue. Then again, I've never missed a payment on any card and never pay the minimum. Plus I enjoy the 5% back on rolling categories.

Anyways, I use my cash rewards from Bank of America 90% of the time anyways. Unfortunately, I tried to use Apple Pay at panera a few weeks ago and they hadn't rolled out the system yet.

Still waiting to use apple pay at some point.

 

[TomTomTuning]

It still doesn't work with my local credit union. One day, one day I'll get to try this ApplePay! Hopefully by time I get it, more retailers will support it.

 

[Baseballdad]

PLEASE work on getting the Lakeland Bank chain online with ApplePay. I was told by LB that they are waiting on the finishing paperwork to be able to go online with ApplePay. I have other credit cards that do work but mostly would like to work on LB. Thank you

 

[BradH9]

It is pretty much useless to me. None of the retailers that I use on a regular basis supports it. Where is Kroger, Trader Joe, Home Depot, Lowes, gas stations?

I used Apple Pay at Home Depot last week.

 

[BradH9]

So Apple Pay will work anywhere as long as an NFC equipped machine is activated?

 

[ecschwarz]

So Apple Pay will work anywhere as long as an NFC equipped machine is activated?

Yep. Technically, it should work anywhere that has a machine capable of any sort of contactless payment, which are usually NFC. Basically, if you see the contactless symbol, it should work. Newer terminals will display it on the screen if enabled, while older ones have an add-on module that sits atop them (McDonald's is the best example of this). Places like Subway that typically use separate pin pads for customers may not explicitly say, but their pin pads are capable. Also, any contactless vending machine will work.

The only known issue is that some card/bank combinations seem to have trouble with certain readers - I guess it has to do with how the transaction is sent. MasterCard seems to be the fussiest (at least what I've gathered on the boards here), while most American Express and Visa credit cards are fine. Visa debit cards also have had some snags, depending on how they're seen.

At most places, you just need run things like a normal credit card transaction, since the terminals will be expecting input from the magnetic reader, the chip reader, or the contactless reader. You won't need to differentiate to the cashier (and in fact, it may confuse them since from a functional aspect, it's still a credit card transaction).

I've also found that most NFC readers are usually sending a signal always, so you can hold your phone over them to see if it'll wake up Passbook - this could be a quick way to see if a reader is active without actually conducting a transaction. Think of it like if you swipe a magnetic card too early, they'll "read" it, but some may not actually do anything with it and you'll have to swipe again at the end (Old Navy/Gap/etc. makes you wait until the cashier totals it, while Target will read the card and then process it once everything is totaled)

 

[tigress666]

It is pretty much useless to me. None of the retailers that I use on a regular basis supports it. Where is Kroger, Trader Joe, Home Depot, Lowes, gas stations?

Yeah, sadly all of my cards support it but the only retailer I go to that actually supports NFC in general is McD's. I would love kroger to support it cause then QFC and Fred Meyer would support it I would think (and I go to Fred Meyer quite a bit). Also, if safeway supported it that would be awesome too. That would pretty much cover most my purchases. Well, as well as Costco.

 

[cerote]

It still doesn't work with my local credit union. One day, one day I'll get to try this ApplePay! Hopefully by time I get it, more retailers will support it.

I decided to email my CU and they said they are working on Apple Pay support first quarter of 2015.

 

[thalazy]

My bank accepts Apple pay but I have yet to use it. Would love to see it implemented in more stores and I am sure it will.

 

[kdarling]

That "90% penetration" number makes for great headlines but is highly misleading.

Yeah, it doesn't mean 90% of the banks.

It doesn't even mean 90% of the money being transferred. (Especially since some of the major higher credit level user and business cards aren't supported yet. Average business CC purchase is over twice that of a consumer purchase ... $200 vs $80. And debit cards only average $30.)

It's just saying that we can register credit cards that make up 90% of the number of transactions, which is likely mostly the lower amount transactions.