Apple Pay's August expansion surge continues with 37 more US banks

By Mike Wuerthele

Apple continues pushing forward with its deployment of the Apple Pay service, adding 37 new banks and credit unions to the already expansive list of supporting financial institutions.

Like the Apple Pay expansion in early August, Wednesday's inclusions add a number of small, local financial institutions. The additions were once again announced through Apple's list of Apple Pay providers.

Banks added Wednesday include:

On Tuesday, Hong Kong's Bank of East Asia and Telekom's Tap & Go were added to Apple Pay. Both banks are incentivizing users to sign up with promotions rewarding users for repeated use of the service.

Apple Pay debuted with a U.S.-only launch in October 2014. At present, the system is capable of both point-of-sale transactions, as well as in-app purchases. Apple Pay utilizes a token-based system with each transaction identifier only able to be used for a single purchase, helping to prevent credit card fraud.

Apple does not generally discuss specific Apple Pay adoption figures in any detail, but Apple CEO Tim Cook noted that the service has grown by 400 percent year-over-year, with three million retailers in the U.S. supporting the service.

Apple Pay is now available in Australia, Canada, China, France, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, and the U.K.

Apple announced an addition to the Apple Pay system at June's WWDC, bringing online payments to iOS 10 and macOS Sierra through the new "Pay with Apple Pay" service.