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To anyone who wants this feature available, I would encourage you to reach out to Target to express your desire for Apple Pay and the ability to conveniently and securely make a payment with your phone:

guest.service@target.com

Why not ask Tim why ios devs can't use the NFC in the iPhone? Why does Apple not play nice with standards?

Why does the iPhone have NFC but you can't use it? Why does the iPhone have Bluetooth but can't send jpgs via Bluetooth?
 
Why not ask Tim why ios devs can't use the NFC in the iPhone? Why does Apple not play nice with standards?

Why does the iPhone have NFC but you can't use it? Why does the iPhone have Bluetooth but can't send jpgs via Bluetooth?

What does that have to do with this topic at all? Also, using BT to send files of any size is a joke, the protocol can barely get audio right.
 
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Too bad for you Target, you opened up space for your competition.

Our family shops more at Meijer's and Kohls than Target anymore. We still shop at Costco and we're happy to hear that they might turn on their NFC POS terminals by the end of the quarter!
We don't have a Meijers nearby as far as I know, but our family has been shopping more at Kohls, too. We shopped at Target a lot just a couple of years ago, but they're more often out of stock now and I'm finding so much of their branded merchandise is badly made as time goes on.
 
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What does that have to do with this topic at all? Also, using BT to send files of any size is a joke, the protocol can barely get audio right.

This thread is about Apple Pay still not working at many places, specifically at Target. I'm trying to explain why. The reason being Apple doesn't play nice with standards, that is why. NFC is a ISO standard.
 
I don't see why an NFC payment would change anything about customer data. Its simply the payment method. My Kroger card would still be needed for the "discount" and likewise for the other stores. When it comes time to use my debit card to pay, they have either collected my info or they haven't. If this were the case they would stop taking cash.

Yes that is correct, the carrot Kroger and other grocers waive with the discount via loyalty card would tie the customer back. Which is why I would expect Kroger to cave before Walmart or Target, since those two probably don't want to be sucked down the loyalty card path. Regarding loyalty cards though, yes that doesn't bother me as I toss them in the bin after a couple weeks and/or using up the gas points.
 
This. Agreed 100%. What most don't consider is the time frame from the time the host terminal host has to connect to the bank, which can slow the process down. I have never had an issue with any transaction, each situation varies. One forum member is making sweeping generalizations without evidence supporting their anecdotal claims.
Actually count me in as forum member number two on that. Every time and place I've had to use my chip cards so far, it takes a bit of time for my card to be released. Slower than swiping. So I assumed it was the way chip cards and terminals worked and they were all like that. I'm surprised to hear some people find them fast. That's great. Maybe the ones I use will eventually be made to work faster, too.

Edit: come to think of it, I think the McDonalds ones worked fast. I watched my husband use it and it seemed fast. Mostly I use the one at CVS and a couple of local groceries. Those hold my card a little while before the release tone sounds.
 
Most MasterCard credit cards are Chip & PIN rather than Chip and Sig. notable exceptions are USAA and Citi

My first chip card was a B of A Visa we got a couple of years ago for overseas travel. It is chip and signature, and to my knowledge they still won't issue a PIN for it. Sure would be nice if they did before we make our next trip to Europe this summer. Discover doesn't do PIN cards yet either. Maybe this is all changing, just not very quickly.

But since this is a story about ApplePay, what I find really annoying is being required to sign for ApplePay purchases. I now do a protest doodle on all my signature-required purchases. It's beyond me what anyone thinks they are getting from a signature, especially if you've already been authenticated biometrically.
 
I don't understand the QR-based payment systems. I tried it at Wal-Mart once, but why would I use a system that is actually LESS convenient than popping a card in the chip reader?

Apple Pay is awesome though. Wave the watch over the reader, and done.
I think these old MXC members are over estimating the willingness of shoppers to have custom apps on there phone for each store. Plus, I don't need my purchases monitored and shared with whomever.
 
I think these old MXC members are over estimating the willingness of shoppers to have custom apps on there phone for each store. Plus, I don't need my purchases monitored and shared with whomever.

A lot of people visit the same couple of stores for their day to day stuff. Having at least a couple of retailer-specific apps isn't completely out of thee question for those.
 
The stores don't want to setup Apple Pay because its the same as taking a credit card which they don't want to do either. They do it reluctantly but when they do they pay a fee to the card processor and give up some income. Applications like the one Wal-Mart has released can tie into your bank account with withdrawal bypassing the fee associated with the credit card. If they offer chip which is slow here in the method its been deployed and then offer a "faster" app that bypasses the card fee then the store keeps more money. You also feel better about the faster transaction. Apple Pay can not be difficult to activate, it has to be that the stores don't want you keeping the habit of using a payment method that costs them profit.

Technology is rarely the issue, its always something to do with money and how much can be made.
 
Actually count me in as forum member number two on that. Every time and place I've had to use my chip cards so far, it takes a bit of time for my card to be released. Slower than swiping. So I assumed it was the way chip cards and terminals worked and they were all like that. I'm surprised to hear some people find them fast. That's great. Maybe the ones I use will eventually be made to work faster, too.

Edit: come to think of it, I think the McDonalds ones worked fast. I watched my husband use it and it seemed fast. Mostly I use the one at CVS and a couple of local groceries. Those hold my card a little while before the release tone sounds.


I haven't tried Mcdonalds for chip transactions, yet, it scares Me to eat their.

I think it varies across the board. In my area,
The chip has been an expedited experience. I have had my chipped card for one year now issued from my bank and to me, it's been quicker than swiping. In fact, I can't even tell You the last time I swiped my card. Chipped readers are spreading vastly and still being adopted. Either way, I think it has to do with The receiver communicating from the terminal to the bank host. Which could have an impact.

Either way, it's sporadic across the board for results. I don't use Apple Pay as much as I thought I would, even on my Watch.
 
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I'm still using an iPhone 5. So there's that.

I am amazed at how many you feel that waiting for a debit/credit card to process is excruciatingly long. It might take 30 seconds on a slow day. If that is too painful for, you probably should should just stay home.

For giggles, I somethings pull out my checkbook. You guys do know what a checkbook is?
 
This thread is about Apple Pay still not working at many places, specifically at Target. I'm trying to explain why. The reason being Apple doesn't play nice with standards, that is why. NFC is a ISO standard.

That has literally nothing to do with it. Target have made it quite clear they want to use their own, proprietary system so that they can track user purchases. Plenty of places with the exact same POS terminals work just fine with my iPhone.
 
I don't see why an NFC payment would change anything about customer data. Its simply the payment method.

US merchants for a long time have used fully integrated card processing with their cash registers. When a card is swiped or inserted, they are able to capture the card number and name from the card and use this to build customer profiles. This is premised on the fact that the average customer going to a particular store will tend to use the same payment method at that store.

From the card number, they can infer possible income levels based on the bank that issued the card and the type of card that it is (i.e. is it a basic VISA card or a high-end VISA Infinite Privilege card).

From the name, they can infer gender and potentially, ethnicity.

Combining this data with the geographic area of the store and characteristics of the residents in that particular area can provide valuable insights especially in terms of store-level promotions, product mix, and merchandise placement.

Contactless/NFC cards, while still transmitting the card number do not provide the name (unless the card is really old, or the issuer did not issue the card correctly). As long as the customer has used the card over the contact interface once, this in itself is not a major problem as they can still tie the data to the same profile.

Contactless mobile payments like Apple Pay add a further level of anonymity in that the not only is the name not transmitted, it transmits a device account number that is unique to each device (so your iPhone and Watch have different numbers) being used and does not necessarily correspond to the same card number range of the actual card. Additionally, these numbers will change anytime you get a new device, or have to re-add the card. So it is much harder for them to get the same type of data.
 
Target is an interesting case, I am very familiar with the hacking case (did my thesis on it, learned some Russian as a result).

These days I only go to target for a certain store brand item that is decent quality,otherwise I wouldn't step into the store. I've had my card replaced twice due to the 2014 hack but you know what? Stuff happens. But i have no confidence that they actually have their systems security up to a place that is substantially better than 2014. I would never ever use a debit card there tied to anything I care about. Cash or credit for you.

It's funny because I always always hear target cashiers complain about how slow chip and sign is, one even said "isn't it a giant hassle?". I laughed, clearly they didn't understand the implication of their statement and I didn't lecture, but target accepting Apple Pay would go a long way to get some goodwill. Just look at how excited people are at the mere prospect.
 
My fiancée and I get the same song and dance every time we shop at our local Target (which is weekly since we do our grocery shopping there). While we have yet to encounter a rude Sales Associate, it's still a bit annoying to hear, "Are you paying with your Target RED Card to save 5% today?"

I'm sure management pushes it on the associates. But come on now.

If you shop there weekly, and do your grocery shopping there, why aren't you taking advantage of the 5%? I personally won't shop Target anymore, but when I did, I had the card for that very reason.
 
FYI, just use cash. It works EVERYWHERE!

I keep trying to insert money into my DVD drive to pay for my Amazon purchases, but it doesn't seem to work!

Cash sucks. I like to get rewarded for my purchases (i.e. 4% on my gas and grocery is awesome). Also don't have to worry about getting mugged for money.
 
Things will get faster in the US as merchants start implementing Visa's Quick Chip standard, which has been adopted by MasterCard, AMEX, etc.

The way things usually work now in the US, you can insert your EMV card at anytime during the transaction, but nothing big can happen with your card (in terms of authorization) until the cashier hits the TOTAL button and the final amount is known. The PIN pad then sends the final total amount + a cryptogram from your chip out to your issuer for authentication and approval. Then the PIN pad has to wait for your chip to issue the final approval (because the chip has the ability to decline the transaction if something's wonky, even if your issuer approved it).

With Quick Chip, as soon as your insert your card, it will "authenticate your card" by sending a preset amount (that is irrelevant) + the cryptogram from your chip. This just verifies that your card is legit. This can happen while the cashier is still ringing stuff up. You can remove your card as soon as this part done. Then, when the cashier is done, the PIN pad will send the final total amount out for authorization. This works very much like how pre-swiping does currently.
 



Target currently has "no plans" to support Apple Pay in its stores, a company spokesperson confirmed to MacRumors today.

target-logo-2016.jpg

Regarding a since-deleted AskTarget tweet that said Apple Pay was "awesome" and suggested support was forthcoming, the U.S. retail giant said "the information shared with this guest was incorrect."Target has been one of the most notable Apple Pay holdouts since the iPhone-based payments service launched in October 2014.

In May 2015, Target CEO Brian Cornell said the retailer would be "open-minded" about supporting additional payment systems like Apple Pay after implementing chip-and-PIN card support. Target began supporting chip-and-PIN cards in October 2015, but it has yet to accept Apple Pay in its stores.

Last month, Target confirmed it plans to launch its own mobile payment service in its stores this year. An earlier report said the retailer was leaning towards using QR code technology for the wallet app, rather than NFC, enabling customers to purchase goods by scanning a code at checkout akin to Walmart Pay.

Target was a founding member of the Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), a consortium of retailers that planned to launch the indefinitely-postponed payments platform CurrentC. A number of MCX members have since reversed course and began to accept Apple Pay, including Best Buy and pharmacy chain Rite-Aid.

Target does support Apple Pay in its shopping app for in-app payments.

Article Link: Target Says it Has No Plans Underway to Accept Apple Pay in Stores
 
Things will get faster in the US as merchants start implementing Visa's Quick Chip standard, which has been adopted by MasterCard, AMEX, etc.

The way things usually work now in the US, you can insert your EMV card at anytime during the transaction, but nothing big can happen with your card (in terms of authorization) until the cashier hits the TOTAL button and the final amount is known. The PIN pad then sends the final total amount + a cryptogram from your chip out to your issuer for authentication and approval. Then the PIN pad has to wait for your chip to issue the final approval (because the chip has the ability to decline the transaction if something's wonky, even if your issuer approved it).

With Quick Chip, as soon as your insert your card, it will "authenticate your card" by sending a preset amount (that is irrelevant) + the cryptogram from your chip. This just verifies that your card is legit. This can happen while the cashier is still ringing stuff up. You can remove your card as soon as this part done. Then, when the cashier is done, the PIN pad will send the final total amount out for authorization. This works very much like how pre-swiping does currently.

They could make things faster now without having to implement Quick Chip (see Walgreens as an example), they just won't for some reason. QC is more for the being able to insert/remove while items are being scanned thing than anything else.
 
This is a bummer I was planning on switching all my shopping needs to Target when I first heard they were going to accept Apple Pay. I just thought my local store hadn't switched yet, I didn't realize they were only going to use it in the app. Guess I'll stay shopping at Walmart and Walgreens

If Target hears enough comments like this, they would accept Apple Pay lol.

It is disappointing that they will not.
 
They could make things faster now without having to implement Quick Chip (see Walgreens as an example), they just won't for some reason. QC is more for the being able to insert/remove while items are being scanned thing than anything else.
I'd guess that hardly any of the big box stores are running their own in-house software for their payment gateways, so anything they want to implement has to be supported by whichever third-party gateway solution they're running, as well as their processor. That makes for some not nimble environments, IMO.

I think the perception from most consumers is that QC will make things seem faster, even if they actually aren't.
 
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