Apple Pay picks up 40 new supporting US banks, total nears 800 mark

By Roger Fingas

Apple on Wednesday added another 40 U.S. banks to the list compatible with Apple Pay, bringing the total close to 800 as it prepares to improve merchant support as well.

As has become common in recent months, most of today's additions are smaller regional institutions, rather than nationwide businesses. Most of the major U.S. banks were quick to join Apple Pay in late 2014.

Merchant support has been a greater problem for Apple. Though the company has a wide number of announced partners, many of them have yet to start taking payments, presumably because of the need to upgrade point-of-sale terminals to support NFC-based transactions.

Domino's Pizza is slated to launch support by the end of 2015 however, and companies like Cinnabon, Chili's, KFC, and Starbucks will go live in 2016. JCPenney should come on board this spring.

The full list of new banks includes: