“What’s not to like about Apple Pay? Once you set it up with a credit card, secure online or in-store payments couldn’t be much easier or more secure,” Tera Thomas O’Brien writes for Tera Talks. “I’m especially impressed with how easy it is to make a purchase using Apple Pay at retail stores. Press the side button on Watch, hold it next to the scanner, wait for the bing sound. Done. That makes digging my iPhone out of my bag feel downright quaint.”
“What’s the problem with Apple Pay?” O’Brien writes. “Unlike my Visa card or my MasterCard, Apple Pay is not ubiquitous. Yes, I know. New fangled technology takes time to integrate into society… [but] you’ll never be able to use Apple Pay everywhere because too many merchants are greedy and put their company’s needs higher than their customers.”
“Merchants like Target, CVS, and other retailers lose a bit of control over the transaction,” O’Brien writes. “Too many retailers want control over the transaction so they’re less likely to allow Apple Pay into their purchase process, hence the growing fragmentation of technology and society.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Make it a point to patronize Apple Pay merchants and prioritize them over those outfits who block the unmatched security and ease-of-use that Apple Pay offers.
I regularly shop at:
(1) My neighborhood supermarket, SuperKing.
(2) Costco
(3) Staples office supply
(4) Kaiser health plan pharmacy
(5) Trader Joe’s
(6) Rite Aid drug store
(7) Home Depot
Of those, only my supermarket, Staples, Trader Joe’s and Rite Aid accept ApplePay. I am hoping that Costco and the Kaiser Pharmacy will get on board sometime this year, since they plan to begin requiring chip credit cards this year, too.
That will leave only Home Depot as a lost cause for me.
Costco doesn’t even have chip yet, fat chance of them ever adopting Apple Pay.
In Canada, Costco only allows payment via cash, a debit card or their own branded credit card, which is chipped. The problem is that Costco will not allow its card to be validated and used in your Apple Pay Wallet. You can tap the card on their card reader, but you can’t use Apple pay.
So … Costco getting chips in the USA may not lead to the acceptance of Apple Pay – at least, it hasn’t thus far in Canada.
So far, all other stores that have NFC / tap card readers have worked for me using Apple Pay.
I asked at Costco why they don’t use the chip card readers and they said that the slow processing would cause delays and make transactions take too long for their customers. Imagine if each chip card user took 30-60 seconds longer per transaction and multiply it times millions of shoppers and you can see their point. ApplePay, however, would speed things up once people got the hang of it.
Apple Pay has worked fine for me at Home Depot. Was there a recent policy change that I don’t know about?
@JWSC: I am not aware of a policy change at Home Depot. Perhaps I’m just not doing it right? I’ve tried waving my iPhone all over the machine where you insert your chip credit card. Next time I go there, I will try again. I’m in Los Angeles, California by the way. Perhaps it’s regional?
They actually haven’t accepted it in over a year–basically since they turned on chip support.
There are only a ½ dozen or so places I regularly go that are set up for Apple Pay. Disappointing because it so flawless and easy from the Watch. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: It is up to Apple to put team out on the streets to evangelize and educate merchants and banks about the advantages of deploying systems open to Apple Pay. If the current incentives are good enough they need to think about sweetening them to reach the tipping point. We take it for granted now, but the Credit Card companies needed about full decade to make card acceptance ubiquitous. Apple needs “Apple Pay Accepted Here” signage and door decals so customers can know the store or restaurant’s status before entering — stuff like that.
Damn! “If the current incentives AREN’T good enough…”
Here in the UK, I’ve been able to use Apple Pay almost everywhere. We’ve had contactless payment cards for quite a while now and it a mainstream facility. I can’t recall encountering a card reader that had the contactless symbol without it also working on Apple Pay. We’ve been able to use Apple Pay in car parks or on London’s underground railways and buses for ages.
The only issue that I have is my bank imposes a limit of £30 ( $37 ) per transaction, which is far too low for a weekly supermarket visit and for many other purchases too. There’s no limit on the number of separate £30 transactions I can make in a day, but if my bank raised the individual transaction limit, I’d be able to use it much more.
Being able to instantly see a list of all my recent transactions is a great way of keeping an eye on my spending and the lack of easily seeing what I’ve been spending is my main objection to using credit cards everywhere ( my credit card company’s app for checking recent transactions is a model of how not to implement it ).
alanaudio: I recognize you as a long-time poster here on MDN. So your name is Alan, you’re into audio, and you’re from the UK. Hmmmm — are you possibly the Alan I’m thinking of, sir?
‘tricky’ isn’t it ?
I don’t know your thought processes so couldn’t possibly know if I’m the Alan that you’re thinking of.
I was around the UK Mac boards long before here, so much depends on whether I knew of you then. If you have any contact details for me, the important ones haven’t changed in many years.
We’ve never met. I simply thought that, based on the three aforementioned tidbits of info, you are perhaps Alan Parsons.
Sherlock Holmes I am not!
I can confirm that I’m not Alan Parsons ( although I would love to be that talented! ) and I think we can deduce that you’re not Sherlock Holmes, however it’s lovely to talk with you – whoever we might be.
Hey Alan, the £30 limit is for “contactles” payments… that is basically the same tech as Apple Pay but uses the chip in the card. Problem is, all you need is the card, there’s no PIN so to me the £30 limit makes sense.
If a retailer FULLY supports Apple Pay then there is no limit, you can see for yourself in any Apple Store in the U.K. – they all accept Apple Pay in its true form so there is no limit (as you need your fingerprint or passcode to pay).
The USA really is backward in so many ways… their myriad of fragmented payment systems, reliance on magnetic strips, signing slips of paper (how quaint) and stores able to selectively disable certain payment technologies is baffling, and only serves to piss of the people they serve – customers.
Apple Pay kicks ass in the U.K., I rarely take my card out now as every place I regularly frequent accepts Apple Pay. The danger is when I walk into my local bar…
I agree that with a contactless card, a modest transaction price limit is a sensible precaution in case the card gets stolen, but when it comes to Apple Pay, the technology is guaranteeing that the user is indeed the authorised user, so therefore they don’t need to impose such a small limit.
The card reader should be able to tell the difference between a contactles card and an Apple Pay device and set different limits accordingly, so it looks like a situation that could get sorted once the banks and terminal manufacturers get their acts together ( which judging by past performance might not be very soon ).
Agreed, they should be able to tell the difference, but they don’t… so this is a halfway house until they update the tech to tell the difference between the two.
I personally think most banks have had their noses put out of joint because Apple Pay is so groundbreaking and secure and Apple have invested serious money into a great solution.. I have some big UK banks as customers and they just don’t understand that to improve services you need to invest money. There’s one bank in particular (I won’t mention them by name but they are one of the big 5 banks in the UK) have 8 years old firewalls that are so obsolete they are having to buy spare parts from eBay.. yes, seriously, eBay.
No vendor support, just some guy in a data centre waiting for a package from some random bloke off eBay to swap out the NIC and get the creaky POS running again.
Banks in general are shite, years behind the times and unable to see into the future and invest accordingly. Something like Apple Pay has taken them by surprise.
McDonalds in our area has stopped using or broke Apple Pay. The enabled the chip reader, and now Apple Pay doesn’t work.
If you see a blue screen with Golden Arches, Apple Pay doesn’t work. If you see the red screen, Apple Pay may still work. It’s possible the franchisee may have gone rogue, but that’s hard to tell.
Is Apple Pay working for you at McD?
Is it possible the problem is with individual franchisees in your area or is the problem widespread? I haven’t had a problem anywhere I’ve tried to use it. Just curious.
I have tried at a couple of local McDs. Both the same result. It’s a matter of convenience, there’s not much opportunity to try elsewhere. If it’s working for you then it must be a franchisee issue, which I have already complained to corporate over. See and wait.
The only thing I ever get at a McDonald’s is iced tea. Since the first day Apple Pay went live in 2014, I’ve been able to use it at McD’s all over the state of Georgia. I was very surprised when, on the first day I used Apple Pay at a McD’s, the employees actually knew what it was and how it worked. I’ve been to several much higher-end establishments that don’t even know if they accept Apple Pay!
Yes, but here on the West Coast, the trend is reversing. Less and less employees know how to use it.
A couple of them around here have the chip reader turned on and Apple Pay works fine at those. Maybe it’s a temporary issue?
Last time I wished Apple Pay I had to push multiple buttons and sign. It was easier to use my debit card instead.
But that was a year ago.
Can you confirm it’s easier now?
It completely depends on the merchant.
A year ago, Whole Foods in NYC required signature on all transactions. Now, the requirement is only for larger ones. How large? I guess around $50 or $60 (can’t tell exactly).
Fairway doesn’t bother with the signature anymore, and they e-mail you the receipt, so once you get the confirmation beep from your phone / watch, you are done.
In a local supermarkets (SuperFi and Cherry Valley), I still have to sign, even for a $5 purchase.
Eventually, the large chain stores will quickly figure out that there is ZERO fraud with ApplePay and will ultimately remove all other second-level verification (signature, either on the panel, or paper).
Target, Costco and CVS are stuck in 20th century. Eventually, they will come around. To make it faster, Apple really needs a marketing campaign, and an incentive for consumers.
Walgreen’s still requires a signature.
Is the cutover point for Signature (PIN or other ID) based on the transaction total?
I’ve been really happy with: Nob Hill (Raley’s) markets, Whole Foods, Walgreens, and Arco.
There’s this odd sense of security based on the underlying tokenization that mixes (for me) with the delight of using my Watch to check into the terminal. hehe
Disclaimer: I’ve been an Apple Employee for nearly 20 years, so I am most assuredly baised.
~~Jazzbo
I’m pretty sure Walgreens doesn’t if you use a Visa or MasterCard. If you see something like “A000….” at the bottom of a store’s receipt, there’s a good chance the store won’t ever ask for the signature.
Over here in the UK, I just open the app, touch the home key and hold the phone somewhere near the terminal. I didn’t know there was a more complicated way of doing it.
That’s a bit too complicated. When I use Apple Pay, I pull my phone out of my pocket and hold it near the PoS device. As soon as the cashier finishes scanning items and submits the total for payment, my phone automatically wakes up, Wallet/Passbook app automatically opens up and prompts me for TouchID authentication. So, no need to manually wake it up, or manually open the app (double-press on home button from lock screen).
If a merchant doesn’t take ApplePay the cashier gets a load of shit from me, then I hand her cash, the old school payment approach.
The only problem I have with ApplePay, other than merchants who don’t take it, is that some merchants’ card readers require I enter my PIN. What a pain in the ass. I know it is a bogus procedure because not every retailer requires a PIN when I use my Chase debit card with ApplePay.
Pretty much every merchant that takes Apple Pay with a debit card requires a pin. So there is really nothing special. The time saving factor is gone.
That’s down to the merchant. I use my debit card on Apple Pay as I prefer using a debit card to using a credit card. I’ve never had to enter a PIN with Apple Pay.
Well, every place that I’ve been that allows me to use Apple Pay with my debit card, requires a pin. Even though the debit card can act as a credit card, it always asks for a pin. So count yourself lucky if you don’t need the pin with a debit card.
A lot of merchants actually prefer you pay in cash so that might not be as punishing as you think.
So let me get this straight – Apple adds the cost of its processing (1 or 2%, right?) on top of credit card fees which are anywhere from 2.5-4% already. Then Apple Pay requires the user to purchase an Apple iOS device (or two if you must have a wrist mounted pay gadget).
Well there you go. Less than 30% of the world’s population has an Apple device and Apple Pay skims more money away from merchants.
I don’t care if it is technically more secure, merchants need more incentives to implement Apple Pay. It doesn’t help that Apple spends absolutely no effort attempting to instruct its less savvy iPhone users how to use it either. If people don’t understand how it works, how do you expect them to trust it?
Not 1-2%, it’s 0.15% or thereabouts.
http://www.digitaltransactions.net/index.php/news/story/Apple-Pay_-No-Charge-for-Merchants_-But-Transaction-Security-Fees-for-Issuers
And as noted in the article, merchants don’t pay this. It comes from the issuing bank. The real question is, will the issuing bank save enough on fraud prevention to offset this additional cost?
My understanding is that the cost of fraud prevention to the bank is greater than Apple’s handling charge, so Apple Pay should be a very attractive proposition for them on cost grounds. The objections seem to arise from loss of data mining opportunities.
But I think these are two separate entities.
Banks are the ones concerned about fraud loss. Merchants are the ones concerned with the loss of data mining ability (banks usually don’t sell this data).
So, while banks are paying for ApplePay (and saving on fraud prevention, thanks to complete security of customer data), merchants need to be incentivised to offer it, and the best way for Apple to motivate merchants is to make ApplePay an attractive choice for customers, thereby making it attractive for merchants.
In Canada, it works flawlessly every where I go. we’ve had contactless payments for quite a while now and this just makes it easier. My bank has. $100 limit. All stores have contactless terminals and they all work. The only place it does not work is in restaurants because they want the system to prompt you for a tip. When they work that out, it will be universal.
coco …. I am Canadian as well … it works every where … it also works even if the restaurant prompts for tip …. you just enter the tip first then hold your phone/watch as usual to finish the payment ….
Yes, in Canada I use it pretty much everywhere, as “coccanuck” says, except some American companies, like Lowes, which do not have modern card readers.
I love Apple Pay. I don’t like though how most merchants have implemented it, say: that I still need to sign a receipt. It’s unnecessary and quite stupid. How many merchants check the signature? How many? Zero according to my observations during the last 6 months. I can sign however I want, not problem. Apple should make the merchants aware that the signature does not help in any way when using Apple Pay. It’s annoying if I have to sign in addition.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that’s done by merchants just to inconvenience shoppers so they’ll avoid using ApplePay and use stores’ preferred payment methods… the ones were they get your personal info and shopping data.
I recently had a holiday starting in Canada and onwards into America. In Canada, transactions worked exactly as I’m used to with chip & PIN cards ( debit or credit ) or Apple Pay, but once we got into the USA, it was like going back in time.
I really can’t remember the last time I saw a zip-zap machine in use apart from as a back-up during a power outage. It has to be maybe twenty years ago.
During our holiday, I stupidly managed to leave my wallet at my sister-in law’s house in Canada and was totally reliant on my iPhone and Apple Pay as we travelled through Canada, but that all started to go wrong when we reached the States, especially when we were in smaller towns away from the cities.
My wife lent me her credit card for the account that we jointly use. I remembered to use her PIN when there was a terminal, so there were no problems and I soon forgot that it wasn’t actually my own card. It was only towards the end of our holiday that I realised that I must have signed dozens of zip-zap slips with the wrong name ( she continues to use her maiden name at work ) and with the wrong signature. Nobody ever queried that I appeared to be a man called Janet and that my signature was not remotely like the one on the back of the card.
I believe there can be only one plausible excuse for merchants requiring a signature, and even that one is rather far-fetched.
If you were to try and defraud your bank for some money by using your card and then pretending that it was an unauthorised transaction, they could then hypothetically present your signature and claim that it was indeed you who used it. But even this scenario is, as I said, quite far-fetched.
Over the past 25 years, there were about four or five occasions when my credit card number was somehow stolen and used to make fraudulent charges (mostly long-distance phone calls to Africa, or Middle East, in the early 90s, when a minute of talk cost $1.50, but some were merchandise in physical stores). Every time this happened, I called my bank and they wrote off every single charge I told them was fraudulent. No confirmation or signature verification was needed. So, that signature requirement is pointless and wasteful.
Here in North Carolina, Lowes Foods requires Apple Pay users to enter their ZIP code to complete the transaction. I don’t get it.
Almost anytime I use a credit card in an out-of-state B&M retailer, that happens. Particularly at any gas stations and/or convenience stores located just off of an interstate highway.
I’ve read it’s to stop casual credit card fraud. The “crime of convenience” type where someone has found/stolen a credit card and tries to use it without an ID, or personal knowledge of the credit card holder.
Re: the MDN take; That only works for “planned” shopping. For unplanned convenience shopping, it’s a bit difficult to prioritize patronizing ApplePay stores when a major influence in decision making these days revolves around “convenience”.
Streaming music/video rather that owing – convenience.
Shopping online rather than B&M – convenience.
Using credit cards rather than cash – convenience.
I could go on interminably.
It’s way, way more “convenient” to pull out a wallet, dig out a credit card, and swipe/insert it… than it is to get back in one’s car and drive across the street (let alone a block or a mile or more away) to patronize an out of the way retailer just for the “convenience” of using ApplePay.
Well, not necessarily; depends on where you live and how you do your shopping.
In my case, I have Rite Aid across the street, a Wallgreens at the corner, and CVS around the block. Before RiteAid started taking it, I did my shopping at Wallgreens.
I have a Cherry Valley supermarket a block away from my building. There is also a SuperFi in the other direction. Cherry Valley only started taking it about six months ago, so I would go to SuperFi. Now I mostly go to Cherry Valley, since they are open 24hrs, and SuperFi closes at 10…
As for Home Depot / Loews, they are both a long subway ride away, so I go where ApplePay works.
I now do most of my grocery shopping at Jewel (chicagoland) because it takes ApplePay. I use it all the time and it’s amazing. It’s a shame Apple doesn’t promote this larger to the consumer and hammer home thru marketing.
That’s what is RIGHT about Samsung Pay. It works almost EVERYWHERE, even at places that turn off or don’t have NFC. I used it at CVS today.
Today I was the victim of a fraudulent use of my credit card. During the day I used Apple Pay several times. The agent at Citi MasterCard told me that 80% of recent cases of fraud are related to Apple Pay. She could not explain why. No way to confirm this- just putting it out there.
My probelem is that so many merchants have no idea they have Apple Pay. Last week my local Sonics took my Apple Pay, no problem. I went there last night and the employees had no clue how to use it and couldn’t get it to work. And they kept telling me they never had it! It’s the only Sonics I ever visit bc it’s less than 2 miles from my house. I also used it at Valvoline and no one knew they had it there either!