Apple Pay: Are Card Issuers Onboard?

Are you a technology or payments geek like me? You probably are if, like me, you engage store clerks in conversation about how often they accept new payment offerings like Apple Pay.

Last week I was doing my weekly shopping at Wegmans Grocery Store in Northern, VA I noticed that Apple Pay is accepted there — a strange little scanner had been installed.

I immediately quizzed the clerk about how often he processes an Apple Pay transaction and his response was a disappointing “Oh, maybe once a day.”

I was a bit shocked to hear this, despite the fact that I am not using Apple Pay myself. Why am I not using Apple Pay? Pretty simple — my card issuers aren’t participating (yet).

I think that consumer awareness about Apple Pay is just slowly trickling down to the masses and that makes perfect sense to me. Verifone recently commented in a MarketWatch article that they fully expect Apple Pay to drive expansion over the next several years.

The card brands have exhibited positive movement towards tokenized, encrypted payments, so what about card issuers? What do they think — and, more importantly, when are they launching Apple Pay?

I asked this questions during the February 2015 FICO webinar on “Combating Fraud through Peer Communication.” Interestingly, 17% of the card issuers that responded were already live, with another 43% planning a launch sometime in 2015. Not bad, eh?

But what about the 40% of folks who indicated that they are not planning on participating at all? Perhaps these folks are just cautiously watching from the sidelines to see if consumer demand propels them into action. I really hope my card issuer of choice isn't among them!