Roger Fingas
On Friday Apple reached the 1,000 mark for the number of U.S. card issuers supporting Apple Pay, a figure continuing to outpace the number of retail chains supporting the platform.
Apple hit the total by adding 32 more entries to its roster, the new ones consisting of mostly of smaller regional institutions. Technically the company only has 998 banks and credit unions, but other issuers include retailers BJ's Wholesale Club and Kohl's.
Apple Pay is usable at over 2 million locations, but to date, the number of supporting U.S. retail chains is still a fraction of the number of issuers. The situation should improve somewhat in 2016, thanks to the addition of merchants like Au Bon Pain, Crate & Barrel, Chick-fil-A, JCPenney, Starbucks, and KFC.
The platform is also due to expand further overseas, for instance coming to countries like China and Spain, though in some cases it will only be through American Express.
The full list of new issuers includes:
- Anderson Brothers Bank
- Bank & Trust Company
- Bank of Labor
- Bank of Yazoo
- BankWest
- Brown County State Bank
- Busey Bank
- Campbell & Fetter Bank
- Central Bank of Oklahoma
- Collinsville Savings Society
- Core Bank
- Covantage Credit Union
- Diversified Members Credit Union
- Farmington Bank
- Florida Parishes Bank
- Fort Worth Community Credit Union
- Great Midwest Bank
- Horizon Bank, N.A.
- Litchfield Bancorp
- Luther Burbank Savings
- Mississippi National Guard Federal Credit Union
- Oregon Community Credit Union
- Pathfinder Bank
- Platinum Federal Credit Union
- Qualstar Credit Union
- Red River Bank
- Seven Seventeen Credit Union
- T Bank
- The Citizens Bank
- Titonka Savings Bank
- US Employees O.C. Federal Credit Union
- Wallis State Bank
William Gallagher
Charles Martin
Christine McKee
Wesley Hilliard
Malcolm Owen
Andrew Orr
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45 Comments
In other news, Samsung has doubled their banks from 30 to 60.
This is a race Samsung can't win. By the time they get most banks online their MST technology will be obsolete.
One good thing I’m seeing now is that retail clerks are more aware of Apple Pay and NFC payments in general. I get a lot less of the, “I’ve never seen that. What is that? Your watch?” comments these days.
Great can we get more retailers now? Yes I'm looking at you Target.
I insist until Apple Pay don't reach to near 100% of the iOS installed base, and don't reach a similar percentage of all markets in which iOS devices are sold, we will not see the real potential of it. Right now is a very limited service, and only the most recent devices support it, if you got an Apple Watch is supported by a couple of iPhones more. And, sorry if I'm wrong, but only is available in five countries.