Comment by madeofpalk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by madeofpalk | Hacker News Reader

> The state of Apple Pay adoption

This is the thing that amuses me - Why is rollout of contactless so slow, and why is it being reported as being specific to Apply Pay?

AFAIK there's nothing for retailers to do to support Apple Pay! As long the reader the EMV contactless standard, it supports Apple Pay (and PayWave and PayPass and other brand names). It's all on issuing bank to support 'issuing' Apple Pay 'cards'.

I added my US credit-card to my iPhone and used it with Apple Pay here in Australia many times. Even small independent cafes support apple pay because they just support contactless payments.

Despite being much smaller, Australia is the largest market in the world in terms of contactless usage[1]. From last year:[2]

    More than 58 million Visa PayWave payments were made in July
    alone, up from 28 million a year ago and 40 million in
    January with average transactions standing at $31.38.

[1]: http://www.mastercard.com.au/_assets/docs/2014-03%20MCW_RBA_... [2]: http://www.news.com.au/finance/money/contactless-tapandgo-pa...

In my experiences, it seems that contactless payments just never caught on in the US and I'm not sure why. I remember in the early 00's when mobil (the gas station) had their speedpass system that was a key fob (linked to your credit card) that you waved in front of the pump. I'm not sure how long they lasted but I haven't seen any for quite some time now. Similarly, I had an american express card some years ago, that had an rfid (I think) chip build into the card to wave in front of a card reader rather than swipe. If I remember correctly, I was able to successfully use that once, as most machines would fail. I've also tried (and usually failed) to use the Google Wallet version from my Nexus 4, when it came out.

Come to think of it, of all the people I know with a new iPhone, exactly 0 of them have their cards imported to apple pay. I've also never witnessed anyone else using it at a store. From my memory, whenever I'd try and use these systmems, the store clerks would always say "it's the coolest thing they've seen" (aside from speedpass, since I was alone at the pump). However, they seemed to take more time than to just swipe my card and be done with it. Maybe that's why?

Edit: Also in my area (south florida), outside of major retailers the support for these is atrocious. Most places only have the small telephone line based readers to print and sign.

Support in Canada is also pretty good. I think the only retailer in my regular routine (Kitchener, Ontario) who doesn't have contactless POS is a building supply store.

It always boggles my mind being in the US and realizing the number of places which with either don't take cards at all, or have only stripe-and-sign.

Cards have big fees attached, so many smaller retailers insist on cash so they don't lose 3% of their income. Even at small, local places that do take cards, I try to always pay in cash to help support them.

>Why is rollout of contactless so slow, and why is it being reported as being specific to Apply Pay?

It's a response to all the "Apple Pay to singlehandedly revolutionize and popularize contactless payments" articles seen over the past few months.

That and having Apple in the headline drives page hits.

Not that simple. EMV doesn't automatically mean it will work. In fact, half the time I shop at an Apple Pay retailer, it doesn't work.

I believe that's because they specifically disable applePay in favor of an alternative service

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