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Apple Pay Rolling Out at Target, Taco Bell, and Jack in the Box Across the U.S. in Coming Weeks
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If you are talking from a marketing relationship perspective, for Apple to announce on its site that Target will accept Apple Pay, and for Target to include the appropriate messaging, decals, logos on its terminals of 'Apple Pay' acceptance, absolutely there would be a relationship. 100% agree.
And it is of course possible that Apple helped to push Target towards enabling contactless.
However, from a purely technical perspective, Apple is not involved in the payment process. Target need not involve Apple, Google, or any other mobile wallet provider to enable EMV contactless payments. Now it is not as simple as changing a configuration parameter given the size and complexity of Target's infrastructure, but ignoring those complexities, yes, Target could enable contactless payment acceptance which would by extension support Apple Pay, Google Pay etc. without the involvement of any of those companies.
And CDCVM is not even something that is 'special' - it has been baked into EMV contactless standards since 2008-2009.
The versions introduced in the US in the early 2000s were magnetic-stripe data emulation only and had real security issues. The terminals that accepted it were few and far between, and were often poorly configured.
Whereas in other countries, EMV contact led to a natural migration to EMV contactless cards, and now mobile wallets, in the US, mobile wallets have helped establish acceptance infrastructure and are now actually leading to the issuance of EMV contactless cards.
Chase for example plans to re-issue all its cards as contactless over the next 12-18 months.
Exactly the same that Walmart, CVS and Target did. They all used to have nfc and then turned it off soon after apple pay was released. To this day, Walmart and Home Depot remain as holdouts while the others already turned their nfc back on.
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Clearly you don’t know how apple pay works. If it were as you say, Apple pay wouldn’t work in a country where it hasnkt been released. However, that’s not the case. I live in Mexico, where apple pay officially does not exist yet, and I have been using apple pay here regularly for over two years because I was able to set it up on my devices with a US issued card. It works just fine everywhere there is contactless payment, and I can assure you the merchants where I used it here in Mexico don’t display any apple logos on their terminals, have no software to link up with apple, and haven’t worked with anyone from apple.
You’re wrong though. That guy is totally correct because he works in <unnamed department> of <unnamed corporation> and he would know better than anybody else. Why? Because he says so! You simply can not argue with those kind of facts.
Right. At least in the US, Apple does require merchants to accept all four major card networks before they can order any apple pay stickers, but even if they don’t meet the requirement and don’t order the stickers they aren’t prevented from accepting apple pay with cards from whatever networks they do support just as long as they have nfc enabled.
I'm not sure that's true. I've ordered Apple Pay decals from the official website and I am not even a merchant.
No he’s right. So right he is, that apple pay already works in countries where apple hasn’t even launched it yet. I, for example, have been using apple pay in Mexico since 2016 after I set it up on my devices using a US issued credit card. And since Apple hasn’t launched their product in Mexico, I can assure you that none of the merchants here have gotten any marketing, training or signed contract with apple. Yet they can accept apple pay with no problem just as long as the terminal has nfc enabled. As proof, I am attaching some examples of payments I made in Mexico over the last few days using apple pay.
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No, the document is for ALL OPERATIONS. I can assure you apple pay works anywhere nfc is enabled. Even in countries where apple has not yet launched apple pay at all such as Mexico. And even at large retailers in those countries similar to Target or Walgreens. And I have evidence to back up my statement. I am attaching a screenshot of the watch app on my iphone showing some of my recent purchases in Mexico as proof.
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It already did. Farmacias Guadalajara pharmacies and City Market supermarkets, both of them large retailers in Mexico, enabled nfc and are already able to accept apple pay despite that Apple hasn’t launched the service in the country and therefore has no contract with them and has not given them any training or apple pay marketing. MERCHANTS DON’T NEED TO SPECIFICALLY SUPPORT APPLE PAY IN ORDER TO ACCEPT IT. Just as long as they accept contactless payment, apple pay works.
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But Whole Foods implemented contactless payment and therefore Apple Pay BEFORE it was acquired by Amazon. I hope amazon doesn’t decide to turn it off.
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One reason is the economics of scale. UK is much, much, much, much smaller than the US. The American businesses aren't willing to invest in the large-scale upgrades or newer technologies unless they are forced by the legislation or customer demand to do so. Investing in the upgrades or replacements of thousands of equipment (at the retail establishments and in the IT department) along with the software changes can run into millions, if not billions, of dollars.
As long as there's no federal mandate, the companies aren't required to do so. Congress passed the law, requiring the EMV-chipped cards to be implemented by 2015. No need to repeat here the disaster following the transistion to the EMV technology...
Additionally, there's always a chronic shortage of tax funds to upgrade the public transportation system in the US. Not to mention the "angry citizens" who don't want the tax funds earmarked for public transportation system; they fight for the funding to be diverted to the road and highway improvement or expansion projects. The public transportation systems in the US are mostly funded by sales tax of participating counties or cities with fares covering mostly rest of operating budget. San Francisco Bay Area has at least seven separate public transportation entities that overlap each other and compete fiercely for tiny slot of funding from MTA.
Contactless payment started in the UK and Europe much earlier than in the US with the contactless cards. In the US, contactless cards were never a thing and contactless payment really only took off when apple pay was released there in 2014.
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Both true - when contactless cards were first introduced, there weren't many compatible terminals and a few stories about skimming from a person nearby made the news and it became a feared technology. By the time Apple Pay was introduced (which was a year before the "liability shift" where issuers were encouraging merchants to support EMV chip cards or be on the hook for fraud), NFC-compatible readers were phased in at a lot of places, but it wasn't enabled.
From what I've seen, any sort of retail technology roll-out (be it a software change or hardware replacement) goes at a glacial pace due to some bureaucratic red tape, wondering if people will use the new tech (Kroger has apparently mentioned that they don't think there's enough demand for NFC), or cost (some places built in the cost of fraud versus replacing terminals sooner than later). For what it's worth, the fraud concerns are typically after the terminal, not on the device itself (database leaks and such).
Throw in the sheer volume of locations (Walmart has 5000+ US properties, Target has about 2000, and Kroger has 2700 under its various brands) and changes like that become more of a tougher task.
Personally, I think the way places like Europe and Canada had a good evolution of technology allowed things to happen naturally, while the cost of replacement cycles and fear of poorly-implemented early contactless cards scared everyone off here. At this point, most retailers have NFC-compatible terminals, but a handful have made the choice to keep it disabled.
Agree. And it's so frustrating that it's so slow to adapt here when it really doesn't cost these stores anything. I keep trying though. If I see the symbol and there isn't a line behind me in a smaller store, I give it a shot. There have been some odd exchanges at stores where it clearly has not been explained to the person behind the counter, especially at bodegas here in NY. Credit card terminal issuers need to do a better job of training as well.
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Oh thank goodness. Most of their cards work fine in ApplePay but the Business INK cards do not and it's kind of a PITA since it's the card I use most when traveling overseas.
The problem with that line of thinking is that your cash on hand would be limited all the same, because once it's gone... it's gone... and such a limitation on electricity would also impact the ATM, and such internet problems would impact the bank branch's ability to access your data and give you cash in person.
Commerce is always the first thing restored after disasters anyhow, this is low on the totem pole for concern.
I have seen that report as well, but it is based on a survey of 2,000 users and as others have said, I am not completely convinced it is an accurate representation for several reasons. First, it is about a year old, and in that time many more retailers have begun to support NFC pay, which helps encourage people to try Apple Pay and the other NFC Pay solutions. Second, it does not pass the sniff test. Setting up Walmart Pay requires a fair amount of effort (more than Apple Pay, Google Pay and/or Samsung.) One has to download their app, create an account, add credit cards and other information. Unless one is a regular Walmart shopper, it does not seem likely that casual users will go through the trouble. People do not even go through trouble of getting rewards cards at grocery stores that take almost no work to enable.
The report you site, says that 5.9% of Walmart users used Walmart pay once over the previous month. I have observed people checking out at Walmart while waiting for friends to shop for several camping trips over the last two years. I think I have seen two people of hundreds use it. My sample is clear not a representative cross sample of all Walmart, but a random sample from about 7 different Walmarts in 4 different states (California, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin).
This is clearly their position.
Walmart has an average of 270 million customer transactions a week, not 270 million customers a week. Very big difference.
Maybe or maybe not. Lack of Apple Pay certainly makes me and my family less likely to shop there. It may not be crippling, but over the long term, if they do not attract newer, younger, digital native customers, it is a problem for them.
Walmart pay is great for those who are regular Walmart customers, but it it does nothing to gain new customers, and actually makes it less likely that they will shop there. It takes a great deal of effort to set up, but since one knows there are gains if one does it, one feels ripped off if one doesn't do it. Unlike the grocery store savings where the clerk just scans the store card, there is nothing similar for Walmart pay.
You may be right that those were the questions they asked, but they are false choices. Walgreens supports Apple Pay, and integrates the Walgreens card into Apple Wallet. They get just as much customer data as Walmart, without taking any of the risk for maintaining the credit card data. If they were mostly concerned about the data, they would make it easy for me to use it without needing to trust them with my card information. As was mentioned, I expect that their plan is to eventually offer people discounts if they link a bank account and use it to pay.
Their biggest risk is that digital natives do not consider them, and by they time they realize it, they need to fight to pull them into their stores, vs. already have them as customers and only need to get them to increase their shopping.
I can't help you there bud. I gave you the source. Your choice whether or not to believe the info. Your reliance on personal anecdotes does nothing for me so, although I can appreciate your effort here, it's kinda sorta wasted. It's entirely unconvincing. I'll continue to base my opinion on tangible data. Data which hasn't been contradicted via another source by you or anyone else who doubts it. I do appreciate the discourse though.
Yeah but Walmart Pay has a high adoption rate only because Walmart has lots of stores throughout the country and because they block all the competition by turning off the nfc readers at all their stores. There is no merit to achieving success like that. They should turn on those nfc readers so we could really see if adoption of Walmart Pay stays the same as when they were turned off. Then and only then we'd really know how successful Walmart Pay really is.
BTW blocking nfc payment seems to be a Walmart US only thing. Walmart Mexico has already announced that they will soon start accepting contactless payment at all their Walmart, Bodega Aurrera, Superama and Sam's Club stores in Mexico.
Again, you're commenting as if this is some sort of contest to be won. It's not. It's Walmart making business decisions that best serve it's interest. Walmart customers, thus far, have no issue with it. Until their strategy no longer brings them success, I'm guessing they're going to continue.
That doesn’t mean the cards will start working with Apple Pay, that just means the physical cards themselves will have contactless built in and don’t need to have the chip inserted.
I hear you though, my Ink Plus was my go to card for foreign transactions, and it still is when I’m buying stuff online in a foreign currency, but I rarely use it for in person transactions when I’m overseas now since it doesn’t support Apple Pay. We mostly use my wife’s Barclays Arrival+ card now, which is really convenient in Europe since it also supports PIN based credit transactions. It also, obviously, has no FTFs.
Sure:
From the article:
The study also found that despite Apple Pay’s massive market share among debit card users, Samsung Pay users were the most engaged, making 7.3 transactions per month on average, compared to 5.5 transactions per month for Apple Pay and Google Pay users.
From that same source, Walmart pay showed no growth from the third to the forth quarter (it actually showed a decline, but very small). From Apple’s last earnings call: “Cook highlighted Apple Pay's success during the quarter. Apple Pay transaction volume tripled year-over-year, with Apple Pay generating significantly more transactions than PayPal mobile and growing 4x faster.”
As for customer satisfaction:
- Walmart shoppers with access to Apple Pay and who have a mobile payment preference are twice as likely to choose Apple Pay over Walmart Pay, according to new research from Auriemma Consulting Group.
That same study showed that the average Walmart Pay customer spent $319 a month while the Apple Pay customers were spending $291, as of April/May of this year. Since then, nothing has changed in the Walmart Pay ecosystem, but many more retailers have added Apple Pay, giving Apple Pay users more opportunities to use it. Apple’s statement that they had seen triple the transactions year-over-year is evidence of growth.
As for my post being anecdotal. Only my response to the 24% of smart phone users was such. The rest was responding to your analysis of their strategy and pointing out the obvious flaws (nothing stops them from gathering data on transactions with a simple loyalty program like Walgreens and grocery stores without needing to create a complex and cumbersome payment system).
You argue it is only (or mostly) about the data, while I am convinced that it more about creating a system through which they will eventually pressure customers to allow direct bank account debit.
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Let me make sure I'm getting you right here.
1. You question the original data partially because it's based on a survey of 2000 customers for each pay, but present data from a survey based on less than half that total for all vendors combined? Uh, okay. So I guess the data from Auriemma Consulting Group must really give you pause.
2. You quote Cook saying AP volume tripled YoY. From what to what? Grows 4x faster than PayPal mobile. Relevancy?
3. Correction: Avg spend was $319 to $291. You concluded that adding more retailers adds more opportunities for people to use AP. That's true. But the context is all wrong in relation to average spend. Adding more retailers doesn't mean raising the average spend. In fact it could lower the average spend because the more users you have who don't spend at least $291 it drags the average down. I mean what do you think would happen to that $291 average when adding in Taco Bell and Jack in the Box transactions?
4. People who use Walmart pay use it begrudgingly. No logic supports that assertion. Having a preference for Apple Pay doesn't imply a dislike of Walmart Pay. It implies a preference for Apple Pay. I like pizza twice as much as I like hamburgers. That doesn't mean I eat hamburger begrudgingly. That's makes no sense at all.
5. Their strategy works for them. You haven't pointed out any obvious flaws with it. I'd be willing to bet if they thought it would be more advantageous to have Apple Pay, they'd have Apple Pay. Nothing to date says that would be the case.
I'm not touching your bank account theory. That's an unrelated rabbit hole that I have no desire to descend.
Even if Apple Pay does end up being considered a flop in the US, we can all admit that having more places where we can use contactless cards is a good thing, right? In fact, I'm not even sure it can really be considered a failure since many retailers likely would have just purchased chip readers without NFC hardware otherwise (or continued to have them hidden from customers since, you know, chip and signature).