Apple Pay adds support for BMO, TD and Scotiabank in Canada

Canadian Apple Pay users have three more banking options from which to choose, as Apple on Wednesday rolled out support for the country's remaining "Big Five" banks BMO, TD and Scotiabank.

The latest Apple Pay bank additions, reported by The Toronto Star, come less than one month after the payments service integrated with systems from RBC, CIBC and smattering of smaller establishments.

Apple Pay was first introduced to the Canadian market in November, but initial availability was limited to American Express credit cards. Wider support was announced earlier this year following successful negotiations with major banks and Canadian interbank network Interac, the latter of which developed a new token service to process debit card-based Apple Pay transactions.

Today's additions come just one week after Apple Pay gained five major banks in Singapore. As it did in Canada, Apple leveraged its partnership with American Express to offer consumers in Singapore relatively early access to touchless iPhone and Apple Watch payments. After going live in April, the company hammered out deals to bring comprehensive coverage to more than 80 percent of all Visa and MasterCard cards issued in the country.

Looking ahead, Apple Pay chief Jennifer Bailey last week said the company is working to rapidly expand in areas of Asia and Europe. The endgame, Bailey said, is to offer Apple Pay in every major market Apple products are sold.

16 Comments

SpamSandwich 32917 comments · 19 Years

About 8 years ago

Rene Ritchie will be elated.

viclauyyc 847 comments · 10 Years

FINALLY

EsquireCats 1268 comments · 8 Years

I'm glad that working with Amex has seemingly been a win-win scenario for Apple and Amex. This has effectively forced stagnant banks into moving to the much more secure and private token system. (The bank's only reason not to support Apple Pay was to protect their transaction fees.)

Every industry seems to fear Apple's involvement, but the net effect for consumers has always been the same: more choice, better security/privacy and better services by leveraging technology. What some of these companies fail to realise is that blocking a new technology doesn't make it go away, it just opens the door to competitors.

I can say confidently that the fractional loss in transaction fees for supporting Apple Pay and similar services is far smaller than the fees and capital lost by customers who switched to competitors. (I for one switched credit cards to take advantage of the convenience of Apple Pay.)

gadgetcanadav2 690 comments · 11 Years

We're finally there!
Now bring more flyover maps to Canadian cities please.

misa 827 comments · 13 Years

Added my main card to Apple Pay. Now I can finally go outside without any cards *cough*wait-a-sec*

So just as a warning, as I also jumped on the AMEX Apple Pay originally. The POS systems will sometimes reject and request inserting your card. If you see that, you'll still need your card to complete that transaction. AMEX is seen as a US-issued/US card by default, if you insert the AMEX card it will try to do a chip+sign transaction. So don't be surprised if it does this.