3 ms·

Seriously. Does the US not have tap-to-pay credit and debit cards or something?

ctdonath 11y ago
Nope. We have a VERY large network of point-of-sale registers, all built around the old swipe-to-pay (often requiring signature) credit card model. Replacing practically every POS register in the country is not a simple task; we're rolling out "chipped cards" and new registers to support them (that's a lot of effort & money), but doing so will take most of a year. That's why Apple Pay is such a big deal, and why the fuss about large businesses trying to roll out their own specialized (and usually inferior) version: yes we're starting to move to chipped cards, but even those are proving slow to use in many/most areas; most of the new registers also support NFC, making Apple Pay's "double tap a button and wave your watch/phone nearby" desirable - IF the store turns on the NFC & infrastructure. Alas, Walmart is trying to avoid Apple's fees by putting support into their own app, which will be annoyingly slow.
- ultramancool 11y ago
  > We have a VERY large network of point-of-sale registers, all built around the old swipe-to-pay (often requiring signature) credit card model. Yeah, well, I'm in Canada and we had about the same thing, yet in the last 5 or so years we've seen 2 major changes (chip and pin followed by tap to pay) and most business have kept up, I haven't used the swipe in 3 or 4 years and the tap I'm now able to use tap at most places. Is there a problem with adoption in the US for some reason that doesn't exist in other places? Perhaps Interac has some special power here or something.
  - ctdonath 11y ago
    It just seemed to stall out. Either the technology wasn't up to par, or (more probable) there wasn't the impetus to roll it out everywhere - failure to reach critical mass. For NFC, however, practically every card reader MUST be upgraded this year to support chipped cards, with NFC riding along as a given capability which Apple is leveraging with its "half the market" NFC-capable phones & watches. About this time next year I'd expect widespread availability of Apple Pay and other NFC services.

Nope. We have a VERY large network of point-of-sale registers, all built around the old swipe-to-pay (often requiring signature) credit card model. Replacing practically every POS register in the country is not a simple task; we're rolling out "chipped cards" and new registers to support them (that's a lot of effort & money), but doing so will take most of a year. That's why Apple Pay is such a big deal, and why the fuss about large businesses trying to roll out their own specialized (and usually inferior) version: yes we're starting to move to chipped cards, but even those are proving slow to use in many/most areas; most of the new registers also support NFC, making Apple Pay's "double tap a button and wave your watch/phone nearby" desirable - IF the store turns on the NFC & infrastructure. Alas, Walmart is trying to avoid Apple's fees by putting support into their own app, which will be annoyingly slow.

ultramancool 11y ago
> We have a VERY large network of point-of-sale registers, all built around the old swipe-to-pay (often requiring signature) credit card model. Yeah, well, I'm in Canada and we had about the same thing, yet in the last 5 or so years we've seen 2 major changes (chip and pin followed by tap to pay) and most business have kept up, I haven't used the swipe in 3 or 4 years and the tap I'm now able to use tap at most places. Is there a problem with adoption in the US for some reason that doesn't exist in other places? Perhaps Interac has some special power here or something.
- ctdonath 11y ago
  It just seemed to stall out. Either the technology wasn't up to par, or (more probable) there wasn't the impetus to roll it out everywhere - failure to reach critical mass. For NFC, however, practically every card reader MUST be upgraded this year to support chipped cards, with NFC riding along as a given capability which Apple is leveraging with its "half the market" NFC-capable phones & watches. About this time next year I'd expect widespread availability of Apple Pay and other NFC services.