WSJ: Apple Pay could be headed to Canada before November
The U.S. monopoly on Apple Pay could soon be coming to an end. The Wall Street Journal reports that the mobile payment system is likely to arrive in Canada this fall.
Apple is said to be in negotiations with Canada’s six biggest banks to bring the service online in November. Apple Pay will enable mobile payments for both credit and debit cards using the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, and Apple Watch. The banks include: Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia, Bank of Montreal, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, and National Bank of Canada.
The Wall Street Journal cautions that no agreement has yet been reached with the banks, as many “aren’t happy with Apple’s fee proposals and are concerned about security vulnerabilities like the ones that U.S. banks experienced as they rolled out the service.”
Because of these concerns:
Canadian banks want Apple Pay to work in a way that requires a “secondary authentication” to verify customer information before cards can be used with the phones. That means that a consumer could be required to enter a PIN, log-on to a mobile banking app or use a one-time passcode sent via text message before cards can be used on Apple Pay, those people said.
Apple Pay was introduced last September. The mobile payments solution harnesses the iOS fingerprint scanner and Touch ID, in order to perform secure, safe payment transactions.
It was recently announced that 68 merchants in the U.S. now offer Apple Pay as a payment option. These include Acme, GameStop, the Orlando Magic, and T-Mobile’s retail stores.
For more on Apple Pay, see: The list of supported Apple Pay merchants, cards and apps continues to grow, Apple Pay: a primer for new users, and Before the Apple Watch arrives, new research looks at the success of Apple Pay.