Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
69,059
40,095


Apple this week expanded Tap to Pay on iPhone to New Zealand, which means independent sellers, small businesses, and other merchants in the country can use an iPhone as a contactless payment terminal.

Apple-Tap-to-Pay-iPhone.jpeg

With Tap to Pay on iPhone, an iPhone is able to accept payment using Apple Pay, contactless credit and debit cards, and other digital wallets thanks to NFC technology. Transactions are encrypted and Apple does not have information about what is purchased or the person that made the purchase.

On the customer end, using Tap to Pay on iPhone works like any standard Apple Pay transaction. Sellers open up an app on an iPhone XS or later, register a sale, and present an iPhone to the buyer, who can then use a contactless payment method to complete the transaction.

Adyen, ANZ Bank, Stripe, Windcave, and Worldline offer Tap to Pay on iPhone in New Zealand.

Tap to Pay on iPhone launched in February 2022 in the United States, and since then, Apple has been working to expand it to additional countries. The feature is available in Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Netherlands, Romania, Sweden, Taiwan, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Article Link: Tap to Pay on iPhone Now Available in New Zealand
 
Retailers in New Zealand have an annoying habit of charging extra fees for contactless transactions. If you use Apple Pay or a contactless card there is often an extra 1.5% or so tacked on to the purchase automatically, even if it’s a debit card.

Will this new tap to pay app mean lower fees? Unlikely!
 
Retailers in New Zealand have an annoying habit of charging extra fees for contactless transactions. If you use Apple Pay or a contactless card there is often an extra 1.5% or so tacked on to the purchase automatically, even if it’s a debit card.

Will this new tap to pay app mean lower fees? Unlikely!

Isn't that because contactless gets run as Visa or MC instead of EFTPOS? The latter is a lot less expensive than the former from what I remember, so it's no surprise that stores would want to discourage it when they can.
 
Retailers in New Zealand have an annoying habit of charging extra fees for contactless transactions. If you use Apple Pay or a contactless card there is often an extra 1.5% or so tacked on to the purchase automatically, even if it’s a debit card.

Will this new tap to pay app mean lower fees? Unlikely!
They do that in the US sometimes too. Specifically with gas or vending machines.
 
Last edited:
They do that in the US sometimes too. Specifically with gas or vending machines.

I'm fully expecting this to happen at most stores here eventually. A lot of them have disliked Visa and MC for a very long time, after all (mainly because interchange is in fact higher here than in a lot of other places).
 
Retailers in New Zealand have an annoying habit of charging extra fees for contactless transactions. If you use Apple Pay or a contactless card there is often an extra 1.5% or so tacked on to the purchase automatically, even if it’s a debit card.

Will this new tap to pay app mean lower fees? Unlikely!
Yep, I got stung for a $13 surcharge last week because I'd left my wallet in the car and used Apple Pay with my iPhone..
Worked out at 2% of the amount added just for using contactless Pay Wave.
What is it Apple reputedly takes? 0.15% I believe is rumoured.
So some one is making a killing using tech which is safer and more secure that a regular card transaction.
Piss poor banking regulation here in NZ.

I went back home to the UK in August, first time in 6 years.
No one uses cash anywhere.
My cash was getting refused in many places just for trying to buy something like a coffee.
Contactless payment only. Apparently came in during Covid.

According to the Apple NZ Pay web page:
Screenshot 2024-11-23 at 12.26.23 pm.png
 
Retailers in New Zealand have an annoying habit of charging extra fees for contactless transactions. If you use Apple Pay or a contactless card there is often an extra 1.5% or so tacked on to the purchase automatically, even if it’s a debit card.

Will this new tap to pay app mean lower fees? Unlikely!

I want to make a joke about the Coriolis effect or the price of bits in undersea cables. But that’s just good old fashioned American style capitalism right there.
 
Retailers in New Zealand have an annoying habit of charging extra fees for contactless transactions. If you use Apple Pay or a contactless card there is often an extra 1.5% or so tacked on to the purchase automatically, even if it’s a debit card.

Will this new tap to pay app mean lower fees? Unlikely!
I find this a lot with small retailers. I think they are just passing on all (or a portion) of the cost of doing business fee handed to them by credit companies. I don't think they like it any more than the customers. That said it can encourage tax friendly cash transactions. ;)
 
Yep, I got stung for a $13 surcharge last week because I'd left my wallet in the car and used Apple Pay with my iPhone..
Worked out at 2% of the amount added just for using contactless Pay Wave.
What is it Apple reputedly takes? 0.15% I believe is rumoured.
So some one is making a killing using tech which is safer and more secure that a regular card transaction.
Piss poor banking regulation here in NZ.

I went back home to the UK in August, first time in 6 years.
No one uses cash anywhere.
My cash was getting refused in many places just for trying to buy something like a coffee.
Contactless payment only. Apparently came in during Covid.

According to the Apple NZ Pay web page:
View attachment 2454836
This is wild. Do people actually use cash then or is inserting card old school way also circumvents the fee?
 
Samsung tap to pay has been in India since 2017 but would prefer to use Apple Pay as most of my phones are iPhones. Now it has come to New Zealand. But two years into Apple tap to pay, there is no news of it being launched here anytime soon.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mganu
This is wild. Do people actually use cash then or is inserting card old school way also circumvents the fee?
Here's an example of how wild it is back in Scotland.
I took my son to visit the ancient abbey on the Island of Iona (which is a great day out if you ever get to Oban).
When in the Abbey I spotted a collection plate bolted to the wall inside the Abbey and attached in the middle of the plate was a contactless payment device with a fixed price of £6 if you wanted to give money to the church.

IMG_4356.jpg
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.