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It's definitely a US thing. Here in Australia, everyone hardly uses Apple Pay and all major banks have their own cards/app that does NFC payments. I find it re
by kinkora 10y ago
It's definitely a US thing. Here in Australia, everyone hardly uses Apple Pay and all major banks have their own cards/app that does NFC payments.
I find it really strange that it is not widely adopted in the US since it removes a lot of friction when it comes to paying for stuff ergo encourages more business. I.e. my usual coffee joint was always packed in the mornings and since they adopted NFC payments a few years back, I noticed the usual bottleneck queue of people paying at the cashier is significantly less unless someone starts jiggling for coins.
- honkhonkpants 10y agoExperience here is the complete opposite. When I buy a coffee I hand the guy a few bucks and leave. If the clown in front of me starts waving their iPhone at the terminal, I start rolling my eyes and tapping my fingers.
- Animats 10y agoWorse, they're using an affinity card, which takes extra time. Even worse, they're being signed up for an affinity card, which takes several minutes.
- benjiweber 10y agoContactless from credit/debit cards are a lot faster and more reliable. You just tap the card against the chip reader. In the rare occasion where it doesn't work (e.g. cost is too high, too many purchases per day) you can just slot the card into the slot and enter pin - which takes maybe 10 seconds instead of 1.
- lstamour 10y agoAs one of those "clowns" I wish there were more like you as I'm always waiting for someone to grab exact change. You can even order from your phone at some places... actually, the order process is what I find also slows things down. I'd love to put in my order directly by phone and skip that line entirely.
- batiudrami 10y agoTipping probably has something to do with this. On US EFTPOS terminals you're prompted to add a tip/percentage/cash/okay/okay/okay/pay with card. In Australia you're given a total, the cashier sees the card in your hand, asks "Paypass?", and bang, it's done. Entire transaction is over in <10 seconds, and the only customer interaction with the terminal is waving a card over the top of it. Additionally, the lack of tipping means that people who pay with cash expect their exact change back and will wait for it, or will fish around for coins to find the exact amount, which slows down transaction processes.
- lostsock 10y ago10 seconds would be the extreme end of things. Most of the time it takes more like 3 or maybe 4.
- honkhonkpants 10y agoExperience here is the complete opposite. When I buy a coffee I hand the guy a few bucks and leave. If the clown in front of me starts waving their iPhone at the terminal, I start rolling my eyes and tapping my fingers.
- chrischen 10y agoWell, people don't have to jiggle for coins. They can just swipe the card, which is usually just as fast if not faster than NFC, and pretty much guaranteed to work 99.99% of the time whereas NFC has failed on my at least 20% of the times.