That has nothing to do with Apple Pay and everything to do with the merchant's reader, their transaction acquirer, and their merchant bank. As far as the reade

That has nothing to do with Apple Pay and everything to do with the merchant's reader, their transaction acquirer, and their merchant bank. As far as the reader is concerned, for contactless, there is no, as in none as in nada difference between a contactless payment with a physical Visa card, or a contactless payment using Apple Pay (or Google or Samsung Pay). They are all "authenticated NFC payments".