Roger Fingas
Another 50-plus U.S. card issuers have been added to the list supporting Apple Pay, continuing to outpace the number of merchants actually accepting payments through the service.
As most nationwide chains signed on within the first few months of Apple Pay's launch in October 2014, most new issuers are small local institutions.
Apple Pay is on the verge of expanding to countries like China, but U.S. retail support has lagged considerably. Just a handful of big chains have announced plans to go live in 2016, among them Starbucks and JCPenney.
The full list of new issuers includes:
- 1st MidAmerica Credit Union
- Achieve Financial Credit Union
- Advantage Federal Credit Union
- Alloy Federal Credit Union
- Altoona First Savings Bank
- Altura Credit Union
- Amalgmated Bank of Chicago [sic]
- Associated Credit Union of Texas
- Bank of Ann Arbor
- Beehive Federal Credit Union
- Brand Banking Company
- Business Bank of St. Louis
- Capitol Credit Union
- Charlotte State Bank & Trust
- Citizens Bank (AL)
- Citizens Savings Bank
- Community Credit Union
- Credit Union of Texas
- Earthmover Credit Union
- Employment Security Credit Union
- Family Trust Federal Credit Union
- First Community Bank of Beemer
- First Interstate Bank
- First Service Federal Credit Union
- Fort Community Credit Union
- Georgia Bank and Trust
- HomeStar and Financial Services
- Houston Highway Credit Union
- IDB-IIC Federal Credit Union
- Jefferson Financial Credit Union
- Katahdin Federal Credit Union
- Lion's Share Federal Credit Union
- Mainstreet Community Bank of Florida
- Marine Bank & Trust
- Marine Federal Credit Union
- Monona State Bank
- Navy Army Community Credit Union
- Northway Bank
- Oakworth Capital Bank
- Plaza Park State Bank
- Reliant Community Credit Union
- Security Bank and Trust Company
- Silver State Schools Credit Union
- Spencer County Bank
- Summit Community Bank
- Sundance State Bank
- The Commerce Bank of Washington
- Tioga State Bank
- Torrance Community Credit Union
- Total Community Credit Union
- Triangle Credit Union
- United Community Bank
- USNY Bank
Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster earlier this week said he expects 2016 to be a a big year for Apple Pay, with a potential peer-to-peer service rollout, in-browser payment support and more.
Malcolm Owen
Amber Neely
Christine McKee
Chip Loder
Marko Zivkovic
21 Comments
Alluding that merchants are specifically holding back accepting Apple Pay is simply misdirection. The issue is merchant chose to delay upgrading to new chip ready terminals. ALL chip terminals have the NFC chip in them as part of the encrypting code necessary for chip to work resides in the NFC chip. I have found in the DFW area that as I see more and more smaller shops finally upgrading to the newer, small, more affordable chip POS terminals that these SAME merchants have NO idea that Apple Pay is even exists. Most in fact will initially say that they don't accept such. Yes, I am aware that in some cases, the vendors of the new chip terminals have unfortunately presented NFC activation as an added cost to the merchant, but the overwhelming majority work perfectly. I was recently in PepBoys and noticed they had new terminals. I told the cashier that I was going to try Apple Pay since I saw the NFC logo. He almost immediately told me they did not accept it and before the words had hardly left his mouth the transaction went thru. He was shocked! He told me that they had not been able to even get the chip side to work on the new terminals so for NFC payment to go through, let alone Apple Pay, he was astounded. Then just yesterday, I was in a local mom/pop donut shop and noticed they had gotten new chip terminals. Again they were totally clueless about NFC or Apple Pay, but astounded to see it work.
We have got to stop accepting that merchants are the issue. Look for the new terminals and give it a try as it only takes a moment to see if NFC is alive.
Apple should create a campaign to raise awareness for merchants.
Wish they provided terminals themselves with an etched ApplePay logo. An NFC iPad POS campaign would have worked as well.
I just find it strange some merchants are relying on extra Square hardware to support ApplePay.
I agree with many of the previous comments except that some big box retailers choose not to such as CVS. I like Apple Pay so much that I switched entirely to Walgreens. So, retailers need to beware if they choose to go against the consumer. I'm frankly tired of hearing my credit card was compromised. Apple Pay gives me piece of mind. And, it's faster and easier. Last week at Trader Joe's, I got to cut in line cause the two people in front of me wanted to see me use it!