Apple 'Working Rapidly' to Bring Apple Pay to More Countries

[MacRumors]

Apple this morning elaborated on its plans to expand Apple Pay coverage and achieve its goal to deliver the mobile payment service to "every significant market" the company is involved in.

Currently Apple Pay is available in six countries, including the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, and China, with plans already underway to bring the platform to Hong Kong and Spain. Earlier this week the service expanded its presence in Singapore to support five major banks and cover over 80 percent of cards, and VP of Apple Pay Jennifer Bailey says many more rollouts are on the way.

Speaking to TechCrunch, Bailey said that Apple is "working rapidly" in Asia and Europe to extend the service, stopping short of revealing which country would be next. But she did share some insight into what Apple is seeking when it assesses potential expansions.

"First, we look at the size of the market for Apple products," she said. "We also look at credit and debit card penetration, and [existing] contactless payment coverage.

"[But] when we bring Apple Pay to market even when contactless is low, it will grow -- it was 4 percent in the U.S. but is now 20 percent. We also work with our network partners, where we can utilize integration with Amex and Visa, to go to market quickly."

Commenting on China, Bailey said that the service's launch in February had been "really successful" and Apple was "seeing incredible user and developer reception", with a number of prominent consumer tech companies integrating the service into their apps to enable digital payments.

In March, it was reported that the service hit three million provisions inside the country in its first three days. The launch initially covered 12 bank locations across China and that number has now risen to 19. In the U.S., Apple Pay began in October 2014 with support across six bank locations. It now covers 2,500, and the company reportedly has designs on bringing the service to ATMs in the near future.

Apple is also focused on introducing loyalty programs to other markets, having completed its first rollouts in the U.S. Similarly, Apple is working to expand support for online and in-app payments in all markets.

Back in February, leaks suggested that France, Hong Kong, and Brazil are on Apple's expansion list for this year, while CEO Tim Cook hinted this week that India could also be set to get the mobile payment service soon.

Article Link: Apple 'Working Rapidly' to Bring Apple Pay to More Countries

 

[BrodieApple]

It's gotta be coming to the other Australian banks soon.. They're getting a lot of backlash for it on Twitter.

Also this is a funny ad from ANZ:
https://twitter.com/anz_au/status/734521969777905664

 

[thmsup]

I don't see Germany getting this any time soon unfortunately. ... The amount of people who love paying in cash and searching for every last penny to pay EXACTLY the amount the cashier asked for is way too high.

Especially old people... its just a pain in the a**. My nana who is 87 will turn 88 at the register - I bet she will, because thats how long it takes her to get her pennies together.

 

[S2_]

It's gotta be coming to the other Australian banks soon.. They're getting a lot of backlash for it on Twitter.
View attachment 633169
Also this is a funny ad from ANZ:
https://twitter.com/anz_au/status/734521969777905664

ANZ in New Zealand needs Apple Pay

 

[ChristianVirtual]

日本

Lots of contactless payment terminals; but given Japan loves its own standards they might not be compatible.

 

[smacrumon]

What would have been even better is if Apple released iPhone 5s in 2013 with an NFC radio and a secure element. Millions more users would be ready to take advantage of ApplePay today.

 

[Stalwart]

Last time i asked my bank (which i'm "golden customer" of) when they're bringing ApplePay, they answered something like "dunno, we don't care, wanna some mortgage?"

 

[daanodinot]

Unless you live in the Bay Area or something, there are so many features that Apple releases, but 99% of the people never get to use. I live in the Netherlands and have yet to use:

• Apple Pay
• Public transport info in Maps (and Flyover, for what it's worth)
• Apple News
• Siri on the Apple TV
• And for that matter, Dutch Siri on iOS, because searching English titles with Dutch Siri is absolute crap
• Spotlight Natural Language search on the Mac

And that excludes all the the iOS features that Apple introduces, and 99% of the apps never get to use anyway. Apple is great at introducing new features all the time, but having them make any meaningful impact is proving to be very hard for them.

 

[bushido]

I don't see Germany getting this any time soon unfortunately. ... The amount of people who love paying in cash and searching for every last penny to pay EXACTLY the amount the cashier asked for is way too high.

Especially old people... its just a pain in the a**. My nana who is 87 will turn 88 at the register - I bet she will, because thats how long it takes her to get her pennies together.

I was gonna say the same thing. it's a vicious circle really. with the amount of places that don't take credit cards I usually have to walk around with cash and mostly don't bother with my card cuz half the time I would not be able to use it. so I'm like f this here's the cash.

when I was in the US i didnt even bother to withdraw money

 

[dannilundgren]

I really don't understand why Apple Pay isn't launched in Denmark. WE ARE READY, and have been for years. My credit card is contactless, and i can nearly use it everywhere, even my phone. We have MobilePay and Swipp for the smartphone, and soon we get an electronic Dankort(common national payment card) too, on our smartphones. If Apple Pay should a chance in Denmark, they have to step forward now, or it is too late.

 

[gim]

I don't see Germany getting this any time soon unfortunately. ... The amount of people who love paying in cash and searching for every last penny to pay EXACTLY the amount the cashier asked for is way too high.

Especially old people... its just a pain in the a**. My nana who is 87 will turn 88 at the register - I bet she will, because thats how long it takes her to get her pennies together.

Yeah I don't see that happen any time soon, either.
Germany is just a bad country for introducing new technology. It always has been.
But hey, I finally get high definition (broadcast, over the air) TV this year. In 2016...

 

[John Mcgregor]

3 iPhones later maybe.

 

[bpcookson]

How about bringing Apple Pay to more stores so people can use it in the countries that have it already? Physical credit cards are getting old quick...

 

[Zirel]

What would have been even better is if Apple released iPhone 5s in 2013 with an NFC radio and a secure element. Millions more users would be ready to take advantage of ApplePay today.

No.

All 2013 payment services are dead now for a reason.

Apple Pay was going to be right standard that Google would never make, because they can't suck data from it.
[doublepost=1464342868][/doublepost]

How about bringing Apple Pay to more stores so people can use it in the countries that have it already? Physical credit cards are getting old quick...

Yeah, Apple is going to force stores to use NFC. Makes total sense.

 

[Baerok]

I hope Apple will soon bring Apple Pay to Poland. Our country is leading in contactless payments in Europe. Poland has one of the largest number of NFC terminals on the continent. Yesterday I was standing in a que at the grocery store and noticed that everyone standing in front of me used contactless payment instead of cash. I am also suprised that this technology is well adopted by older people aged 60+. The only problem is with the penetration of iOS in Poland, as only 4% of all smartphones on the market are iPhones.

 

[randyj]

I remember when Apple were rapidly working on a new Thunderbolt Display too...

 

[actinide]

Its actually scary how many people nowadays use their phones to make purchases. I would never think about using my phone to make payments. Who is liable when your phone gets hacked and you lose money. It has been proved that phones (and tablets, laptops, etc.) can easily be hacked when connected to a public network (such as in a restaurant).
I still prefer my credit card or cash. At least when you get robbed your lose is limited to what you actually had in your pocket.

 

[John Mcgregor]

Its actually scary how many people nowadays use their phones to make purchases. I would never think about using my phone to make payments. Who is liable when your phone gets hacked and you lose money. It has been proved that phones (and tablets, laptops, etc.) can easily be hacked when connected to a public network (such as in a restaurant).
I still prefer my credit card or cash. At least when you get robbed your lose is limited to what you actually had in your pocket.

Wake up. Credit cards are scammed every second.

 

[BvizioN]

Its actually scary how many people nowadays use their phones to make purchases. I would never think about using my phone to make payments. Who is liable when your phone gets hacked and you lose money. It has been proved that phones (and tablets, laptops, etc.) can easily be hacked when connected to a public network (such as in a restaurant).
I still prefer my credit card or cash. At least when you get robbed your lose is limited to what you actually had in your pocket.

Cant figure out if you serious or being sarcastic! Apple pay is away more secure then just using the plastic bank card.

 

[2457282]

How about bringing Apple Pay to more stores so people can use it in the countries that have it already? Physical credit cards are getting old quick...

Agreed. How long has Apple Pay been available in the US? And yet it is still hard places like CVS don't take it. It is getting better and with the new Square reader it will finally reach the small companies. But I just wish this would go faster.

 

[Abazigal]

What would have been even better is if Apple released iPhone 5s in 2013 with an NFC radio and a secure element. Millions more users would be ready to take advantage of ApplePay today.

I have wondered about this too. My theory is that Apple didn't want to tip their hand that they were going to launch a mobile payments platform until it was ready (and a NFC chip would have essentially confirmed that). Thing is - that was pretty much an open secret.

 

[bennibeef]

I don't see Germany getting this any time soon unfortunately. ... The amount of people who love paying in cash and searching for every last penny to pay EXACTLY the amount the cashier asked for is way too high.

Especially old people... its just a pain in the a**. My nana who is 87 will turn 88 at the register - I bet she will, because thats how long it takes her to get her pennies together.

And on top of that I read an article a while ago how bad the german banking infrastructure is.
Was an article about a case where they wanted to shut down a server but then kept it running because nobody knew what it was doing, just putting data from one place to another. Thats because they didnt bother with updating the infrastructure and every new feature is just an add-on to the exisiting system which wasnt designed to handle it.

Then guess how/when those banks are going to implement Apple Pay

 

[chfilm]

I don't see Germany getting this any time soon unfortunately. ... The amount of people who love paying in cash and searching for every last penny to pay EXACTLY the amount the cashier asked for is way too high.

Especially old people... its just a pain in the a**. My nana who is 87 will turn 88 at the register - I bet she will, because thats how long it takes her to get her pennies together.

It will come to Germany eventually. Old people can still pay cash if they want, cash is not going away because of it.. I'm using my contactless ing diba card at Rewe now, and it's a breeze, but there are security issues and it's way less convenient than if I could use my watch!!! Please please apple, bring it on!

 

[Roller]

How about bringing Apple Pay to the U.S.? I'm being facetious, but deployment here is still limited. Some of the retailers shown on Apple's Apple Pay page don't fully support it. For example, Chevron has been listed for more than a year, but I've yet to find a gas station that actually has it at the pump. And at Subway, the terminals are often inaccessible.

 

[actinide]

Cant figure out if you serious or being sarcastic! Apple pay is away more secure then just using the plastic bank card.

Honeslty, I am serious. I am no ICT engineer, but I live with the assumption everything is hackable.
My MacBook air has been hacked, even though I thought my machine was unhackable. Didn't lose anything, but heck it was a scary moment.
I use only use bank cards and cash to make purchases. In rare occasions credit cards (mostly when I am abroad or doing purchases online because I have no other option)