“We’re watching cryptocurrency,” Jennifer Bailey, vice president of Apple Pay, recently told CNN’s Chief Business Correspondent Christine Romans at a private event in San Francisco. “We think it’s interesting. We think it has interesting long-term potential.”
Bailey touched on the trend as part of a discussion about the future of payment and the role of Apple Pay and Apple Card at CNN Business’ event series, The Table.
The company wouldn’t confirm how many people are currently using Apple Pay, but it processes nearly one billion transactions a month. Since the launch in 2014, acceptance of contactless payments in stores has increased from 3% to over 70% in the US, according to Bailey.
Apple Pay has had at least one unintended consequence. By enabling people to stop carrying cash, services like Apple Pay have made it harder and less convenient for users to tip. Some point-of-sale systems have good tipping functionality, but certainly not all. Apple is aware of the problem but doesn’t have an easy fix yet. “One of the key areas where [customers] would like us to do more is actually in tipping,” Bailey said.
MacDailyNews Take: We tip in cash, generally, anyway as servers seem to prefer it that way, for some unknown reason. 😉