“With a wave of your iPhone 6 or the soon-to-be-released Apple Watch, you can buy groceries or fill up your gas tank at Meijer using Apple Pay,” Shandra Martinez reports for MLive. “This isn’t a case of the Midwest retailer signing on to accept Apple’s new online payment service, but rather that it syncs with mobile pay technology already available at its 213 stores.”
“Meijer installed Near Field Communication technology, also known as ‘tap and pay,’ five years ago for its branded MasterCard and Visa credit cards. Since then, it has been used by customers with other payment methods,” Martinez reports. “‘If a customer has Apple Pay capability, our hardware works with it,’ Frank Guglielmi, Meijer spokesman, said.”
“Apple Pay has grown into the biggest mobile payment system since it was launched Oct. 20, reports the Associated Press. The free service lets people make purchases using a credit card or debit card, and a thumbprint. iPhone 6 owners set up 1 million Apple Pay accounts in the first 72 hours it was offered, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced Monday,” Martinez reports. “Apple Pay, which works with the six largest credit card companies, can be used at more than 200,000 storefronts across the country. Retailers accepting Apple Pay include McDonald’s, Whole Foods and Walgreens.”
“Meijer is both a member of MCX and listed on Apple’s site to use Apple Pay. At this point, Meijer does not plan on blocking Apple Pay. ‘We don’t plan to remove or disable these systems,’ Guglielmi told MLive on Tuesday,” Martinez reports. “The New York Times reported today that retailers who signed up for CurrentC are legally forbidden from accepting Apple Pay. ‘If these retailers break their contracts, they will face steep fines for doing so,’ reports the NYT’s Mike Isaac. But Peter Carstensen, who teaches antitrust at the University of Wisconsin Law School, tells Reuters that approach could be a violation of antitrust laws if there is an organized effort by the retailers to drop Apple [Pay].”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Meijer has stores in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky. We urge our readers in those states to patronize Meijer and use Apple Pay if at all possible. Meijer store locations are here.
Unlike CurrentC, Apple doesn’t save your transaction information. With Apple Pay, your payments are private. Apple Pay doesn’t store the details of your transactions so they can’t be tied back to you. That is what Walmart, CVS, Rite-Aid et al. hate about Apple Pay and why they currently won’t accept it.
Boycott non-cash payment systems from any company that willfully turns off NFC in an effort to block the vastly more secure, much more private, and far easier-to-use Apple Pay service.
[Attribution: 9to5Mac. Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz,” “Jonathan,” and “Arline M.” for the heads up.]
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