AppleInsider Staff
In the weeks following Apple Pay's debut alongside iOS 8, more financial partners are signing on to the mobile and digital payments service, with Wednesday bringing L&N Federal Credit Union, UW Credit Union and M&T Bank into the fold.
The latest Apple Pay adopters were announced through an Apple Support webpage that holds a rolling list of participating issuers. With the three additions, Apple Pay is now supported by 21 issuing banks in the U.S.
Today's news comes one month to the day after Navy Federal — the world's largest credit union — U.S. Bank, USAA, PNC Bank, and Barclaycard announced Apple Pay integration in a second wave of rollouts. Apple revealed Apple Pay in September and activated the NFC-based iPhone payments system with an October iOS update.
Although solid statistics are few and far between, most signs point to a successful launch. Apple CEO Tim Cook said more than one million cards were activated with Apple Pay in its first 72 hours of availability, dwarfing competing solutions like Google Wallet.
With a strong start, Apple Pay continues to attract partner banks, while related services have also voiced interest in getting in on the action. For example, Square CEO Jack Dorsey said last month that his company plans to start accepting Apple's NFC solution with new point-of-sale hardware expected to ship in 2015. Previously thought to be a competitor in the payments market, Dorsey said Square is more focused on POS technology than issuing credit cards or building alternative payment systems.
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5 Comments
How long before online web transactions are going to be able to use Apple Pay? Apps are great but web e-commerce is thousands of times bigger market.
I just used Apple Pay last weekend for the first time at Home Depot, actually about five times since I was doing a home repair project and kept needing something else. Fortunately I live only two miles from the store so it wasn't too bad. I now have a few things to return so I will find out how that process works although one of the receipts left in a back pocket got destroyed in the washing machine. Should be interesting.
Great. Let's get more credit unions on board.
Not off topic, but topic adjacent: I decided to run to CVS while seeing family for Thanksgiving. I came to the intersection that the CVS was on and I saw a Walgreens on the other. I decided to hit the Walgreens specifically for the ease of use and security offered by ?Pay and their partners. [I]In the land of the lazy convenience is king[/I]
[quote name="SolipsismY" url="/t/183709/apple-pay-adds-issuers-l-n-federal-credit-union-uw-credit-union-and-m-t-bank#post_2647231"]Not off topic, but topic adjacent: I decided to run to CVS while seeing family for Thanksgiving. I came to the intersection that the CVS was on and I saw a Walgreens on the other. I decided to hit the Walgreens specifically for the ease of use and security offered by ?Pay and their partners. [I]In the land of the lazy convenience is king[/I][/quote] [I]In the province of the paranoid, privacy is principal! ...[/I] ... poo poo pee doo!
I've noticed the message has changed from "Your issuer does not yet offer support for this card" to "Try again later or contact your card issuer for more information" when I try to add my First Tennessee Bank debit.
Fingers crossed this means something is happening behind the scenes, as they have added an entire section about how Apple Pay is coming soon to the bank's website!