Originally Posted by arstechnica.com

But lucky for Apple, a terminal upgrade will be necessary soon in the US. In late 2015, American merchants will have to buy new terminals that support EMV cards, which are more secure (although definitely not hack-proof) than the magnetic stripe cards that the US currently still uses. By October of next year, merchants who don't upgrade their terminals will be made to bear the responsibility for fraud if they are not equipped with EMV card readers. “Merchants are deploying new POS terminals in order to comply with the requirement to have EMV capability in place by October 2015, and nearly all new terminals have the contactless capability needed to accept mobile payments,” senior analyst Thad Peterson of the independent research firm Aite Group told Ars via e-mail. “So, we will very quickly have a critical mass of devices and a critical mass of terminals that are capable of making and accepting mobile payments.” (Peterson added, “The time has come.)

Also, next year's transition to EMV, which is already a widely-supported standard in Europe, Canada, and many other countries, might very well push American consumers to use their phones to pay in increasing numbers, whether that phone is a iPhone 6 or a Samsung Galaxy Note 4. This is because many credit cards based on the new standard will require that the embedded chip be present in the terminal as it reads the necessary information, meaning credit card transactions could take a second or two longer than a quick swipe of a magnetic stripe card. That extra second or two added onto a transaction might be enough to get consumers to feel like using a phone is faster.