As More Banks and Retailers Join Apple Pay, Samsung Steps Up to Compete
Apple started the week off strong by reporting that the list of companies on the Apple Pay bandwagon has grown significantly over the past couple weeks.
Some of the newcomers now supporting the mobile payments platform are SunTrust, Barclaycard and USAA, as well as ten new banks, including TD Bank North America and Commerce Bank, the New York Times reports. On Friday, Amway Center, the home of the Orlando Magic, will start accepting Apple Pay at many of its retail, food and beverage stands during games.
With these new additions, Apple claims it now supports the cards that represent about 90 percent of the US credit card purchase volume.
Companies such as Disney, Lyft, Uber, Airbnb and Staples have already integrated Apple Pay into their purchasing points, and early adopters such as Whole Foods and McDonald’s have been vocal about their belief in the service’s growth potential.
Whole Foods apparently processed more than 150,000 Apple Pay transactions in the early days after the product’s release, and McDonald’s says that Apple Pay accounted for 50 percent of its tap-to-pay transactions in November, TIME notes.
And although Apple Pay still accounts for a tiny fraction of total transactions and needs to expand its retailer footprint, as Forbes notes, it seems that Apple has generated more traction for its payment service than any competing services from the likes of Google, Verizon and AT&T.
But one tech giant is still getting ready to toss its hat in the ring: Samsung. According to Re/code, its execs have been in talks with LoopPay, a payments startup, on a deal that would help the smartphone maker unveil a wireless mobile payment system in 2015.
Though the partnership hasn’t been confirmed, sources say that protoypes are in the works, and that the technology would allow Samsung phone users to pay in the vast majority of brick-and-mortar stores by waving their phones instead of swiping with a credit card or cash. Evidently, Apple can certainly expect some competition in 2015.
