
Apple Pay on pace to account for 10% of global card transactions - prostoalex
https://qz.com/1799912/apple-pay-on-pace-to-account-for-10-percent-of-global-card-transactions/
======
hprotagonist
I unabashedly love apple pay and use it preferentially whenever I can.

in the US, it's faster than chip-and-pin cards by a LOT. It rolls a new number
every time I use it, so i can pay at sketchy gas stations at 2 AM and not care
about skimming. More and more gas stations are upgrading their pump POS pads
so i can refuel my bike without digging under my armour for my wallet.

On websites, my only quibble is that it's often very hard or not possible to
enter discount codes or other special checkout options like "pick up in store"
when using the apple pay button(s); when I don't have any codes, I dearly
appreciate not having to make an account for that merchant and i'm
significantly more likely to spend money at websites that support it.

~~~
tzs
Another nice feature thing about Apple Pay (and maybe some others?) is
automatic updating.

Some place I could not use Apple Pay with was involved in a breach, and so my
bank notified me that I was getting a new card, and to start using it as soon
as it came in the mail.

At about the same time as I got the email notice that this was happening, I
got a notification on my iPhone that the card had been updating in Apple Pay
to the new one. No action was required on my part.

I have no idea how they did that. I know there is a credit card updater
service provided by at least Visa, MC, Discover, and AmEx that allows
merchants with those cards on-file to ask for updates. We use that where I
work, but the interface to it involves posting a file that contains one record
per card we want updated in a fixed field format straight out of the punched
char days (but wider than punched card). Then, typically in two or three days,
a similar file comes back with update records for some of those cards. More
updates trickle in that way over the next few days. And some never get a
response.

Anyone know what it takes to get access to the kind of updates Apple is
getting, where apparently the banks push the updates and they are very timely?
Is this something only very high volume entities can get?

~~~
derrick_jensen
I've come across this in the Stripe API as a standard feature of a lot of
cards. I haven't had one do this myself, but I also haven't lost a
credit/debit card.

~~~
hanley
As someone who uses Stripe for a SaaS product, this is an amazing feature. It
means not having to email/call the client just because they got a new card,
and instead billing keeps going as if nothing changed.

------
herpderperator
What frustrates me is the way everyone talks about Apple Pay as if it's the
standard in mobile payments. Everyone calls contactless payments Apple Pay,
which is technology other countries have had for many years built into the
cards themselves via an NFC chip. Visa calls it PayWave(TM), because you just
wave your credit card over the terminal to pay. I have been taking advantage
of the benefits of contactless pay since 2011 with PayWave. Phones later came
out with NFC support and now we can emulate this "contactless" signal with the
phone's NFC chip rather than those in credit cards. Other than the added
security of making up a new card number for your particular credit card when
you add it to your digital wallet (read: Google Pay or Apple Pay or Samsung
Pay, etc.), and separate accounting, there's no difference from contactless
payments that have been around for OVER a decade now.

We talk about Apple Pay as if that's the standard. We talk about Apple Pay as
if it's what allows you to pay with your watch. It's not. Contactless payments
are. You can read about it here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contactless_payment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contactless_payment).
The intro paragraph:

> Contactless payment systems are credit cards and debit cards, key fobs,
> smart cards, or other devices, including smartphones and other mobile
> devices, that use radio-frequency identification (RFID) or near field
> communication (NFC, e.g. Samsung Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Fitbit Pay, or
> any bank mobile application that supports contactless) for making secure
> payments.

So as you can see, Google Pay is practically identical to Apple Pay, Samsung
Pay, etc. and neither of them are the standard. NFC payments are. And they
don't have to be in an Apple device.

~~~
zie
My understanding is Google Pay, Samsung Pay, etc allow Google and friends to
track your CC purchases because of the way it's designed, where Apple Pay is
designed in such a way that Apple can not tell who you are spending your money
with.

~~~
gruez
>where Apple Pay is designed in such a way that Apple can not tell who you are
spending your money with.

source on this? AFAIK apple doesn't share it, but they definitely have access
to the data.

~~~
zie
source: "Apple doesn't retain any transaction information that can be tied
back to you—your transactions stay between you, the merchant or developer, and
your bank or card issuer."[0]

0: [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203027](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT203027)

~~~
alteria
It's worth noting that the merchant, bank, and credit card issuer can and do
regularly sell that information off in de-identified form. Card networks
especially like monetizing the data since it's very powerful.

I can't find the page describing the program on Visa's website, but their
privacy opt-out describes it pretty well [1].

[1] [https://usa.visa.com/legal/privacy-policy-opt-
out.html](https://usa.visa.com/legal/privacy-policy-opt-out.html)

~~~
neuronic
Yes but they'd do it every time you use your card anyways. So back to cash
only? In the US you're screwed without using credit cards and in Europe I
would not want to go back out of convenience.

Carrying 800 grams of coins around me all the time sucks.

------
aggie
Apple Pay is great, but I wish it was more universally accepted at point of
sale. But in the US we're not even at consistency in any form of POS payment
method.

Disney World (Florida) notably spent a BILLION dollars implementing a
wonderful contactless payments++ system called MagicBand. [1]

Last week I was shocked that at Disneyland (California), where they haven't
implemented MagicBand, they not only don't accept Apple Pay or other
contactless payments, they weren't even consistent about chip vs. mag swipe!

During one transaction, after unsuccessfully swiping, the teller told me to
insert the chip in a tone like I've been living under a rock. I had defaulted
to swipe after the previous 3 transactions had been. There was no post-it note
like many businesses resort to.

If even Disney can't get this right in their highly-curated-experience theme
park, I'm not holding my breath for universal adoption anytime soon.

[1] [https://www.wired.com/2015/03/disney-
magicband/](https://www.wired.com/2015/03/disney-magicband/)

~~~
Hamuko
In Finland pretty much all places support NFC cards and by extension Apple
Pay. Yet to come across a place where it didn't work.

~~~
rimliu
I think Europe got rid of magstripes 15 years ago. IIRC 2005 was the deadline.

~~~
AnssiH
My last magstripe transaction in Finland was in 2010 at a local supermarket
that upgraded late.

~~~
Hamuko
I've never paid with a magstripe in Finland. I only remember having some kind
of a loyalty program card that required a swipe.

------
notJim
I honestly love Apple Pay, but I don't use it super often because it makes me
self-conscious. I feel like a bit of a dick for some reason. If you try to do
something "weird" and it doesn't work, people get annoyed, or it feels like an
imposition. Even when it works, people sometimes make some kind of comment.
Relatedly, it's unpredictable whether it will work or not. It usually does, as
long as the card machine says you can "tap", but sometimes it doesn't.

This would all be better if I ever saw anyone else use it, but I don't.

Edit: wanted to add that here in Portland, we have the special Apple Pay
transit wallet for the bus, which is amazing! I only infrequently take the
bus, and it's so nice to never worry about whether I have exact change for the
fare.

~~~
jon-wood
This is a very US biased thing. In the UK it’s been months since I last
encountered a card reader that didn’t do contactless, and almost as long since
I’ve been told a place doesn’t accept cards. These days you’ll get looked at
funny if you put your card in the machine unless you’re doing a substantial
transaction.

I still carry a small amount of cash on me just in case, but the same £10 note
has been sitting unused in my wallet since November now, slowly gathering
dust.

~~~
tomtomau
Here in Australia we've had contactless for close to a decade I'd guess. All
our terminals have been updated so the only place you really see a terminal
that can't do contactless these days is broken ones where that component seems
to be malfunctioning.

------
gregdoesit
I had dinner with members of the Apple Pay team a year or two back. I asked
them, “So, who are your competitors? Google Pay? PayPal?”

They laughed.

“No, we don’t really track them. We have one main competitor. Credit cards. We
care about Apple Pay being better, easier and more convenient to use than any
of your credit cards.”

And then, finishing dinner, the guy paid with his Apple Watch, using Apple
Pay. The waiter was stunned - he’d never seen anything like that before.

~~~
yalogin
You can pay using Apple Pay at restaurants? Has to be a special case right?

~~~
needusername
Sure you can. It's not a special case. That's the beauty of Apple Pay.
Industry standard protocol. If the merchant accepts contactless credit cards
then Apple Pay will work. No need for any special hardware, any special
software or any contract changes.

~~~
ryukafalz
Typically in the US the waiter will take your credit card back to a payment
terminal rather than bringing a card reader to you. Contactless isn’t really
an option in that case.

~~~
walshemj
No wonder you have more problems with fraud in the USA if you let a waiter
take the card away from you and do god knows what with it.

------
taurath
5% at the moment seems like an incredibly high number to me, at least in the
US. I looked it up here, where the stats say a different number:
[https://www.pymnts.com/apple-pay-adoption/](https://www.pymnts.com/apple-pay-
adoption/)

Also latest is about 51% of merchants have compatible equipment.

1.1% of sales is apple pay. Also usage numbers have gone down from 2018 to
2019. Seems like a puff piece to me?

~~~
Brakenshire
They’re claiming 5% of global card transactions, that surely can’t be true,
there are quite a few developed countries where iPhones are not that common,
and countries where other contactless payment systems are already widespread.
And what about middle income and poor countries?

~~~
anthonypasq
The U.S. is notoriously behind on this sort of stuff

~~~
rsync
"The U.S. is notoriously behind on this sort of stuff"

Which is to say, after _inventing the credit card_ , the US has since fallen
behind.

Too busy inventing The Internet I suppose ...

~~~
ric2b
> Which is to say, after inventing the credit card, the US has since fallen
> behind.

Yes, it has indeed.

------
mrosett
I thought Apple pay was really dumb... and then I started using it. Especially
with an Apple Watch: when I get to checkout, I can fumble with my wallet, dig
out a card, wait ten seconds for the chip to read, and then put the card
away.... or I can tap a button on my watch twice and wave it near the reader.
Done.

~~~
ProfessorLayton
Agreed, I use Apple Pay semi-frequently, but in my experience the ergonomics
taken a step back since I upgraded my iPhone. I went from pulling my phone out
of my pocket with my thumb already on Touch ID > hold near reader > paid to
pulling my phone out > hold near reader > phone says get face closer > double
tapping _the lock screen button_ which is kind of out of the way on my iPhone
11, and I've locked the screen inadvertently, likely due to the case slowing
me down when pressing at times. Not the worst, but not an improvement in my
opinion.

~~~
reaperducer
_pulling my phone out > hold near reader > phone says get face closer > double
tapping the lock screen button which is kind of out of the way on my iPhone
11_

You're doing it wrong.

Pull phone out → double-click wallet button → Authenticate face → Hold next to
reader → done.

~~~
ec109685
Apple should really provide a tip when you have done it the wrong way multiple
times. I too didn’t know that was a better sequence.

~~~
JimDabell
The phone tells you the sequence every time. You double-press the button, it
shows the FaceID prompt. You authenticate with FaceID, it tells you to hold it
near the reader.

~~~
huebomont
Yeah, but it doesn't tell you the sequence all at once. So you don't know that
it's going to tell you to hold near reader, but you know that it needs to be
held there, so you try to hold it there while you authenticate, which is at
the wrong angle for auth, so it fails, so you click the button again, which
this time turns the screen off...

------
notJim
A big part of this is that apparently US credit card companies decided not to
include contactless when they switched over to chip cards, in order to save
money. Ironically, contactless was becoming fairly common before the move to
EMV, but is now pretty rare. I think about half my cards had it a few years
ago, but now none do.

~~~
_bxg1
Contactless is also a security concern on actual cards. It only stores a
single number (like the stripe, unlike the chips or phone-based NFC), and it
effectively "broadcasts" it in a radius of a couple of inches. Very easy to
skim even while it's still in your pocket.

~~~
thesimon
>Very easy to skim even while it's still in your pocket

Do you have any details on that?

From my understanding skimming is mostly an issue for magstripe, as
contactless (at least in the proper EMV implementation) is cryptographically
secured. There is not much to skim.

I'm aware of a few papers on relay or downgrade attacks, but I would consider
them mostly of theoretical relevance (e.g.
[https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/woot13/woot13...](https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/woot13/woot13-roland.pdf)
or
[https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c8a6/9d63996f8f1eef414dbd29...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c8a6/9d63996f8f1eef414dbd29bf665576c0b921.pdf))

~~~
reaperducer
I've seen it demonstrated on local news programs, and sometimes I see TV
commercials for metallic sleeves you can put your NFC cards in so they don't
get skimmed.

When I had a Washington State combined driver's license/North America
passport, it came with one of those little sleeves. So there must be some kind
of threat, or the government wouldn't hand those out.

~~~
xenocratus
It's not skimming, it simply presents an NFC transaction to the card through
wallet/clothes. The card instantly approves, without you doing anything. It's
a one-time loss, capped at the transaction limit for contactless. They could
try and do it over and over, I guess

~~~
reaperducer
The TV reports stated that the cards could be cloned in this manner. Nobody is
bringing a store point of sale terminal on the bus and holding it to your
butt.

------
kelnos
Not to hijack, but I'm really curious to see how this compares with Google Pay
adoption and growth rate. Devices capable of Google Pay are likely more
prevalent (well, maybe; there could be a lot of old Android devices out there
that don't support it), but I wonder if there are similar trends as with the
Apple App Store and Google Play Store, where customers of the former are much
more likely to spend money.

It would be interesting to possibly make some generalizations about how much
money Apple vs. Android users spend in general, even outside their respective
app stores. Maybe not _useful_ generalizations, but I'm interested
nonetheless.

(I say this as an Android user who loves Google Pay and wishes it were
available for web-based payments like Apple Pay is.)

~~~
Marsymars
_Devices_ capable of Google Pay may be more prevalent, but banks are less
likely to support Google Pay. (Some of which is due to the fact that on
Android, unlike iOS, it's possible to roll your own NFC payment app, so some
banks insist on building their own trashy payment apps rather than supporting
Google Pay.)

~~~
kelnos
I'd be curious about that as well: the actual bank support numbers. I'm just
one data point, but all of my cards (even my bank's debit card) are supported
by GPay, even though all of them also have a dedicated app. I've never tried
to use the dedicated apps for NFC payment, though, so I'm not sure if they
have that feature.

~~~
Marsymars
Doesn't cover users per bank, but the Google/Apple support docs are usually
thorough. In Canada, Apple Pay has about three times (48) as many supporting
banks as Google Pay (15). The Apple support is _mostly_ a longer tail - four
of the five largest banks support both. (With TD as the holdout that supports
Apple Pay and only their own app on Android.) For me, that works out to 5
banks supporting both Google/Apple Pay, 3 supporting Apple Pay only, 2
supporting nothing.

Google Pay:
[https://support.google.com/pay/answer/7405561?hl=en](https://support.google.com/pay/answer/7405561?hl=en)
Apple Pay: [https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT204916#canada](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204916#canada)

------
sambroner
This is quite impressive, although inconclusive... Apple Pay currently
accounts for 5% of credit card payments (from article), but, more importantly,
this does not include non-card transactions like WeChat!

Still, I think that Apples deep ecosystem integration will ultimately allow
them to make a really compelling payments platform. The existing work on the
Apple Card is surprisingly compelling. By just offering some basic, but fun
bookkeeping (the colors changing on the digital card and a list of purchases),
Apple has already made a product many of my peers want to use.

I expect peer to peer payments to get more attention and some "Apple Health
for Money" product to come out in the medium term future.

~~~
intopieces
>this does not include non-card transactions like WeChat!

This is common in these articles. For some reason the west is entirely unaware
of WeChat, despite it being _massive_ in terms of userbase. I'm starting to
see restaurants in the Bay Area that take either Cash or WeChat... no Apple
Pay in sight.

------
bitxbit
I love Apple Pay for web. It’s seamless compared to Paypal because all you
have to do is touch/faceID. It is also ridiculously easy to implement as a
developer. If Apple ever goes for the Paypal/Square/Stripe market, they have
some very low hanging fruits to pick.

~~~
ec109685
Given everyone is trying to eek every last percent from their conversation
funnel, I am really surprised more sites aren’t integrated with Apple Pay for
web.

In general, the checkout flow is garbage far too often.

------
cranekam
Not in Switzerland! Over here pretty much only credit cards work with Apple
Pay. I haven't found a single debit card that works with it (other than
Revolut, which is only a bank if you squint at it). I assume this is because
there is a thing called TWINT [0] here, which covers several payment concepts
(peer to peer transfers, point of sale terminals, online) with an equal degree
of mediocrity. It's not ubiquitous, fast, or convenient (derp wait while I
scan this QR code instead of using NFC). I'd love to be able to use Apple Pay.

[0] [https://www.twint.ch/en/](https://www.twint.ch/en/)

~~~
ValentineC
> _Not in Switzerland! Over here pretty much only credit cards work with Apple
> Pay. I haven 't found a single debit card that works with it (other than
> Revolut, which is only a bank if you squint at it)_

I've found the official Apple list [1] to be very accurate. There seems to be
quite a few on the Switzerland list that don't have _(Credit cards)_ behind
them.

[1] [https://support.apple.com/en-sg/HT206637](https://support.apple.com/en-
sg/HT206637)

~~~
cranekam
Thanks for the list. I suspect it's not accurate (e.g. only credit cards
issued by Credit Suisse work with Apple Pay, but it doesn't say that on the
list) but I'll try to verify some of the others.

------
m0zg
Meanwhile Fred Meyer, Costco and QFC keep resisting. It's ridiculous: I can
pay for watered down beer with Apple Pay in a village deep in the bowels of
Mother Russia (using my watch, no less), but not in a QFC down the street.
Instead, Kroger launched its own "Kroger Pay" which has worse chances of
taking off than a lead balloon.

~~~
nottorp
You mean they don't accept contactless payments at all?

The seller's terminal does not have to know about Apple Pay for it to work,
the phone just pretends it's a card.

------
crazygringo
I use Apple Pay mainly for two reasons (US-based):

1) Because rewards programs can be so lucrative per-category, I wind up using
like 5 different credit cards constantly. That's too thick to keep in my
wallet, so I never bothered before... but now it's effortless on my phone. Now
I basically get 3-5% back on most stuff instead of the old 1-2%. It adds up.

2) Chips seem to degrade after a while, as anything contact-based seems
finicky. Apple Pay doesn't always work on the first try... but it always works
by the second. Which is more than I can say for credit cards, god only knows
why.

So now I really just keep one physical credit card on hand -- the one that
gives me most rewards dining out, since you need a card to hand them (in the
US anyways) -- and to use for the occasional instance a store's terminal
doesn't accept Apple Pay (mostly public transit vending machines these days).

~~~
notyourday
> Chips seem to degrade after a while, as anything contact-based seems
> finicky. Apple Pay doesn't always work on the first try... but it always
> works by the second. Which is more than I can say for credit cards, god only
> knows why.

This is _the most annoying thing_. Chips seem to be much less reliable than
the mag stripe and not all systems are NFC. On my daily usage cards in 1/3 of
the cases it takes 2-3 tries ( ~30-45 seconds per try ) and in 1/2 of those
cases it becomes "Use mag stripe" which takes another 30-45 seconds

~~~
crazygringo
I dunno, mag stripe was pretty bad too.

Remember when all the cashiers would keep some kind of plastic film or tape
nearby to fold your card into so the mag stripe would read? Nobody knew why it
worked, but it fixed the problem half the time. But I still remember having to
call my credit card company to send me an early replacement about half the
time due to a mag stripe that just didn't work anymore.

Chips are just equally bad in their own way. Some machines take an oddly high
amount of force to push it in all the way (it feels like it's in earlier but
it's not)... and then there's just some kind of wearing down of contact
surfaces or something that blocks the connection other times.

It's funny, I never would have expected wireless to be more reliable than
physical... but because there are no contacts to wear out, it really is over
the long term.

------
mikestew
Apple Pay makes many purchases almost an impulse buy for me. "Hmm, that looks
interesting...and you take Apple Pay? And I am buying it from someone other
than Amazon, without my credit card getting stolen _again_? Take my money with
a single click!"

~~~
Angostura
Wait until you see the rather nifty charity billboards that you can donate by
waving your phone at them. Saw a photo of one on a bus shelter in the UK

~~~
filoleg
That's actually a genius idea. While I strongly believe that everyone should
do some research about any charity before they donate to it, the
tappable/waveable donation boards would definitely reduce friction to donating
(as well as bringing up awareness of the charity to be researched in the first
place).

~~~
fphhotchips
A few hospitals here in Australia have this to donate to their associated
foundations, but in the cafe near the payment station. You've just paid for
something, and it takes another 3s to donate - it's almost too easy to be nice
without thinking!

------
AdamHede
In Denmark we've had a public payment card for a couple of decades now
(Dankort). It's a no thrills, dump, payment card, but it is universally
accepted, has no fees and virtually impossible to get into financial trouble
with.

I have to admit, I welcome apple pay with a lot of sceptisism. In my
perspective, a lot of innovation in payment over the recent years has been
towards better ways of extracting value from basic transactions, or selling
confusing products to financially illiterate consumer. With the exception of
contactless and mobile payments, which our public solution has picked up as
quickly as the commercial vendors.

------
georgeburdell
Semi-related, but is there a way to setup Apple Pay without disclosing your
fingerprint? Unlike passwords, fingerprints are not protected by the 5th
Amendment

[https://time.com/3558936/fingerprint-password-fifth-
amendmen...](https://time.com/3558936/fingerprint-password-fifth-amendment/)

~~~
antipaul
Pretty sure you can use PIN, including 6-digit and alphanumeric

Or FaceID

~~~
walterbell
It's unfortunate that Apple Pay is tied to iCloud, so you can't use Apple's
payment mechanism without also sharing a range of device data with Apple.

------
rb808
Wow I always thought this was a gimmick that no one used, I'll have to
evaluate. even 5% doesn't sound right to me (of course the headline is an
estimate).

> Apple Pay accounts for about 5% of global card transactions and is on pace
> to handle 1-in-10 such payments by 2025,

~~~
snowwrestler
I find Apple Pay more convenient that using a credit card because I usually
have my phone more quickly accessible to hand than a credit card. The
transaction seems to complete faster as well.

That said, facial recognition to pay is a huge step backward. The phone has be
held just the right way, the side button double-clicked, and you have to look
directly at it... and even then it does not work 100% of the time! The
fingerprint reader was way better for paying.

~~~
walshemj
Actually in the UK I find iPhones are slower than contactless cards for my
regular bus commute.

Transport in the uk is moving to having electronic tickets on their own rfid
cards which you store your ticket on which is even quicker

------
cody3222
I was visiting Sydney earlier this year and could use Apple Pay on the
metro/ferry/bus. Rather than wasting time at a ticket machine, inserting a
card, etc, I could literally just tap my phone on the turnstile and "ding" I
was in.

This was really a game changer.

------
taywrobel
We really dodged a bullet with contactless EMV winning out over CurrenC -
[https://techcrunch.com/2014/10/25/currentc/](https://techcrunch.com/2014/10/25/currentc/)

------
Simulacra
Now if only I could carry my ID around on my iPhone I wouldn't need to carry a
wallet.

~~~
walshemj
Until you drop you phone and break it or it barfs on you in some other way.

There was high profile case of an iPhone user who got fined over £600 because
the phone died and they could not show the rail ticket to the guard on the
train.

She was lucky enough to get it picked up by the national press, probably knew
someone.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
> There was high profile case of an iPhone user who got fined over £600
> because the phone died and they could not show the rail ticket to the guard
> on the train.

With certain NFC transit cards, the iPhone can now emulate them even when the
main OS shut down due to low battery!

------
benbristow
Apple Pay is great. Use it all the time as I usually have my phone in my hand,
not my wallet.

Banks in the UK (incl. Monzo) have recently added security restrictions on
contactless cards which means after they've been used contactless so many
times (up to £100 I think) you have to use chip-and-pin to 'reset' the limit
or you'll be declined. Monzo are quite good in the fact they give you a
notification when you're due to chip-and-pin but it's still annoying.

Apple Pay doesn't have that restriction and is overall more secure with the
FaceID/fingerprint security too.

Wonder what the stats are for Google Pay too

------
spratzt
As far as i can see the limit on Apple Pay is tied to your underlying card
limit.

I settled a hotel bill for EUR1200.00 using Apple Pay. Totally painless; no
card required.

------
cageface
After some initial teething pains Apple Pay & the card are a pretty nice user
experience. I'm hesitant to use this too much though because I feel like I
already have too many eggs in Apple's basket. Overall I'm a happy customer
these days but I'd still rather depend on a bit more diverse array of hardware
& software vendors even if it's less convenient and integrated.

------
pgm8705
I wish restaurants in the midwest would start embracing contactless payments.
A local place I frequently visit finally introduced portable terminals that
the wait staff brought to your table and I was pumped. They reverted back to
the old way a few months later because "people got confused and didn't like
having to interact with the terminal."

~~~
ddenisen
This is amusing because having waitstaff bring over a terminal for you to pay
with your card is pretty much ubiquitous in a lot of countries, such as Canada
and Russia.

------
joeskyyy
Apply Pay in stores is amazing and all, but holy cow the integration when
you're using it to pay on your phone while using Safari or something (add in
Sign in with Apple) is astounding. It's so smooth, no crazy pages or anything
to go through, just click, scan, done. I'd love to see more places adopt it on
the Mac store fronts as well.

~~~
Tepix
Isn't the ability for Mobile Safari to check for Apple Pay availability
disabled by default?

------
notyourday
Apple should get itself a sub with a money transmitter license and skip the
settlement networks all together.

------
dangerboysteve
Are the numbers in the article inflated? The app store uses Apple Pay. Are
those numbers being lumped in?

------
bad_user
I'm from Romania and Apple Pay was introduced here as well.

It's super convenient — before it I was thinking of switching to Android, once
the battery on my iPhone 8 will become unusable, but Apple Pay will probably
keep me on iPhone. No other similar service is available for Android yet.

------
dangus
Probably off topic:

I love Apple Pay for online website purchases. So easy to not have to create
an account for everything.

For IRL transactions, my contactless card is easier than dealing with my
phone, double tapping and face authenticating.

~~~
closetohome
I'm developing a terrible habit of only buying things if the site supports
PayPal or Apple Pay.

------
Taniwha
I bet these numbers don't include WePay/WeChat use in China ....

------
dawnerd
I just found out it works at gas stations in Canada where I’d normally have to
go inside and have them charge my card and sign for it. It’s made traveling a
lot nicer when places support.

~~~
aguyfromnb
> _I just found out it works at gas stations in Canada where I’d normally have
> to go inside and have them charge my card and sign for it._

Say what? I live in a rural part of Canada and contactless payments are
accepted nearly everywhere, most right at the pump. At _worst_ you're using
chip and pin. I can't even remember the last time I had to sign my name for a
credit card transaction.

~~~
dawnerd
US credit cards you do, at least for me. Sorry if that wasn't clear. I travel
to Canada frequently and buying gas is one of the most frustrating parts of
it.

Also today a station actually declined my apple pay and I still had to go in.
Guess it's not perfect yet.

------
jherdman
In Canada we've had contact-less pay with our credit cards for quite some
time. Usage of Apple Pay, etc., is near zero here. Frankly there's just no
benefit.

------
cavisne
I don't believe the numbers.

Apple pay is not useful outside of the US as contactless cards are better
(don't need to unlock your phone and play around with a weird UI to make a
payment), and prevalent. Weirdly within the US most cards dont have them.

Within the US very few places support NFC, and super common workflows like
paying at a sit down restaurant never support it (because of tipping).

I suspect the research firm's data is very incomplete, or they are calling
contactless payments "Apple Pay".

~~~
mns
I’m in Germany where everyone complains about the old school banks, but have
been using only Apple Pay for all payments where contactless is supported (In
the last years, it’s more and more places). There are still places that only
support German “EC” cards (debit cards, because EC cards don’t exist anymore,
but it stuck with people).

------
godelmachine
The headline says 10% of global card transactions.

Just for the sake of askance, is Apple Pay a card transaction?

------
PopeDotNinja
Meanwhile on Google Pay, I'm unable to confirm my Capital One credit card.

------
vinniejames
What percentage is Samsung pay, and the rest of the mobile tap to pay market?

~~~
londons_explore
I believe so far they are all zero percent.

------
ksec
They will accelerate if they could roll out Apple Card around the world.

~~~
judge2020
I wonder why this is. Maybe it's because there's some limited number of
markets outside the US Goldman Sachs can legally do business with? If so, I
imagine Apple has to find a card partner for those other markets.

Edit: I realize Apple Pay in other markets would be hard if they wanted to
keep the 1%/2% daily cash feature due to transaction fee limits, as the other
comment has said.

~~~
babypuncher
Places like the EU put strict limits on processing fees, making perks like
Apple Card's 2% cashback non-viable.

------
ckdarby
If Apple is serious at crushing PayPal it'll purchase Shopify.

~~~
bitxbit
Why would Apple pay $57B for something they can develop (a whole lot better)
in less than a month? I really cringe when I see people use Shopify. But I
understand why mom and pops use it. The same reason why they used to fork over
hundreds a year just to register a domain with a low effort generic website.

------
matt-attack
So does the merchant get your name/Info when you pay with Apple Pay? Are you
afforded my privacy than w a credit card?

I care much more about privacy than security.

~~~
jeffwilcox
With Apple Pay your name shows up often as "VALUED CUSTOMER". So that's your
privacy name!

------
sreeramb93
Apple music and now Apple pay. When I look at Apple, I feel big tech needs to
break down.

------
avocado4
BART and Muni need to start accepting Apple Pay ASAP. You can already do it in
the UK and many other countries.

Adoption of technologies like NFC payments in public transport is a good
metric to see how competent a local government is.

~~~
wikiman
New York is very quickly rolling out OMNY, which does support apple pay. It
makes me happy, and I can't wait until I can buy my monthly that way

~~~
brlewis
Also Portland, Oregon - [https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT207958](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207958)

Chicago and Miami are likely to follow suit since they already support Fitbit
Pay (disclaimer: my employer, but I don't speak for them) -
[https://www.fitbit.com/us/technology/fitbit-
pay/banks](https://www.fitbit.com/us/technology/fitbit-pay/banks)

------
avocado4
> Apple Pay accounts for about 5% of global card transactions and is on pace
> to handle 1-in-10 such payments by 2025, according to recent trend data
> compiled by Bernstein, a research firm.

------
techslave
5% by transaction count or by value?

------
3fe9a03ccd14ca5
Apple is enough of a behemoth to finally drag this industry forward. I use
Apple Pay _whenever_ possible. Mostly because it’s fast and secure. And I
don’t mean “fast and secure” like a marketer, but actually fast and actually
secure.

I can’t believe that the best thing the credit industry could come up with was
chip and pin. Slow, insecure[1], and awful experience. Begone, parasites.

1\. [https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/chip-and-pin-cards-
insecure/1...](https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/chip-and-pin-cards-
insecure/12787/)

~~~
fierarul
In Romania we have Visa PayWave for years. For small amounts you just wave the
card in from of the POS and you are done. For bigger amounts you are asked
your PIN and I find that reasonable.

I don't see how waving my watch in front of the POS would make this easier, it
would actually be more cumbersome depending on how the POS is presented.

~~~
crooked-v
In the US it's usually 'insert card into reader, then wait 30-90 seconds'. I
don't know where the delay comes from, but Apple Pay is usually faster for me.

~~~
judge2020
30-90 seconds is a big exaggeration. Using chip without a pin number takes at
most 5 seconds, and using a pin only increases the wait for the duration it
takes to enter the code.

~~~
kelnos
I don't think I've ever seen a US chip reader take 5 seconds. 10-20 seconds
seems to be the norm (at least for businesses that have always-on internet
connections). Google Pay for me definitely takes under 5 seconds, unless the
reader is particular about where I hold my phone, and I don't get it right on
the first try.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
Costco chip read takes 1 or 2 seconds.

Their POS software was obviously written by competent people who care about
what they're doing. Not by clowns laid off by Barnum & Bailey.

Edit: I did a few minutes of reflection about this, since it's an astonishing
claim compared to standard practices. But what's probably happening has to do
with membership. A checkout begins with the POS system scanning a membership
card. So the system already knows exactly who they are dealing with. Then the
chip read can probably do less in terms of the transaction; perhaps the
transaction is automatically approved once an initial chip read verifies that
the card is present.

Just to be clear, this is using a standard Visa EMV credit card, not a Costco
affiliated card.

