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> The reason Apple Pay actually took longer than Google's solutions is because Apple (presumably) co-developed the payment networks' tokenization solution, Goo

> The reason Apple Pay actually took longer than Google's solutions is because Apple (presumably) co-developed the payment networks' tokenization solution, Google Wallet launched with NFC-based mobile payments in 2011. Apple Pay launched in 2014. Neither solution is fully rolled out yet. Apple's "co-development" was all pre-launch, but not sure how much of this was Apple helping vs. Apple demanding. During this time, Apple demanded secrecy so that only select bank employees would know what was being developed/that it was being made for Apple. There's an article about what was going down back then: https://archive.nytimes.com/dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/banks-did-it-apples-way-in-payments-by-mobile/ https://archive.nytimes.com/dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/... Slow uptake afterwards is a matter of not only every issuer needing to integrate, but also every payment terminal/network needing to be upgraded. Apple in turn likely held back release in a region until enough banks and payment processors had done the legwork. These services are still rolling out - Google Pay added two more countries last week! Apple Pay came to Egypt last year. Samsung Pay came to Germany in 2020, Denmark, Finland and Norway in 2022 and Saudi Arabia in 2024. Doing anything with the financial sector anywhere is a bloody pain.

lxgr 2y ago
> Neither solution is fully rolled out yet. Sure, there's a long tail of banks/cards that don't support it yet, but I think it's fair to call Apple Pay and Google Pay massively deployed and successful solutions. > every payment terminal/network needing to be upgraded. Absolutely nothing needed to be upgraded in the payment terminals, or even the acquirers' systems. Tokenization involves only the network, the issuer, and the wallet provider (for POS/in-person payments). To a POS terminal, an iPhone looks indistinguishable from a regular old contactless card, unless it's explicitly looking at some of the new (and backwards-compatible) tags indicating otherwise.
- arghwhat 2y ago
  > Sure, there's a long tail of banks/cards that don't support it yet, but I think it's fair to call Apple Pay and Google Pay massively deployed and successful solutions. Sure, but my point was that Google didn't have an easier time as a result of Apple putting in the legwork - Google was first, neither is done, and others are far behind. > Absolutely nothing needed to be upgraded in the payment terminals You need to upgrade to support contactless payments, which was not previously a requirement to accept a payment method and not at all widely rolled out - in Denmark, contactless payments launched a year after Apple Pay released in the US, and that's despite Denmark generally being cashless and far ahead of US on credit card security stuff. Contactless payment is still not universally supported, so upgrades are still pending.

lxgr 2y ago

> Neither solution is fully rolled out yet. Sure, there's a long tail of banks/cards that don't support it yet, but I think it's fair to call Apple Pay and Google Pay massively deployed and successful solutions. > every payment terminal/network needing to be upgraded. Absolutely nothing needed to be upgraded in the payment terminals, or even the acquirers' systems. Tokenization involves only the network, the issuer, and the wallet provider (for POS/in-person payments). To a POS terminal, an iPhone looks indistinguishable from a regular old contactless card, unless it's explicitly looking at some of the new (and backwards-compatible) tags indicating otherwise.

arghwhat 2y ago
> Sure, there's a long tail of banks/cards that don't support it yet, but I think it's fair to call Apple Pay and Google Pay massively deployed and successful solutions. Sure, but my point was that Google didn't have an easier time as a result of Apple putting in the legwork - Google was first, neither is done, and others are far behind. > Absolutely nothing needed to be upgraded in the payment terminals You need to upgrade to support contactless payments, which was not previously a requirement to accept a payment method and not at all widely rolled out - in Denmark, contactless payments launched a year after Apple Pay released in the US, and that's despite Denmark generally being cashless and far ahead of US on credit card security stuff. Contactless payment is still not universally supported, so upgrades are still pending.