Originally Posted by
reclusive46
It'll still be a stop gap in Europe until all terminals are contactless in 2020. Also it will do big favours for Amex, where many terminals don't support Amex contactless.
True.
Honestly, Apple should have shelled out money to upgrade all of Cupertino's businesses (except I guess the MCX members) to at least NFC capable terminals if not EMV+NFC. Then worked with every one of those businesses to make Apple Pay as seamless as possible, e.g. actually set up the terminals for VEPS/QPS so that small purchases don't require a signature, link the terminals to POSes so that they automatically turn on when the clerk totals the transaction instead of the clerk having to push a special Credit/Debit button on their screen, etc. Basically an American example of what things could be like if everyone supported contactless.
Because they didn't do that though, they're having a lot harder time getting momentum because businesses aren't upgrading as fast as people would like. Most people are also forgetting Apple Pay exists after going out of their way to make a trip to McDonald's or Walgreens once or twice to try it out. I almost think Apple released Apple Pay a year or so too early but at the same time they released it at the correct time simply because businesses have to upgrade their equipment anyway (and possibly would have gotten equipment without hardware NFC support if a company like Apple didn't release something like Apple Pay).