Apple Pay, the company’s mobile payment and digital wallet service, will come to Canada in November, according to the Wall Street Journal.
According to the publication’s sources, Apple will be expanding outside the United States sometime this fall, arriving in Canada as its first international expansion destination. Canada’s six largest banks—Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia, Bank of Montreal, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and the National Bank of Canada—are currently in discussion with the tech giant, but the banks are apparently “[un]happy with Apple’s fee proposals and are concerned about security vulnerabilities.”
In the United States, Apple charges 15 basis points per credit card transaction and 0.05 per cent per debit card transaction when Apple Pay is used.
The banks also want Apple to institute a one-time “secondary authentication” before Apple Pay can be used on mobile devices. This would potentially create a number of steps before the customer could start using the service, such as entering a PIN, then accessing the dedicated mobile banking app, or using a one-time passcode via text message. This would alleviate some of the reported fraud seen by people using stolen credit cards with Apple Pay in the U.S.
As for tackling the security concerns, the banks have formed a consortium, hiring consultancy McKinsey & Co. to help develop an Apple Pay security protocol.
Canada is an ideal market for Apple Pay due to its large infrastructure of NFC-friendly payment terminals; several Android- and BlackBerry-based payment services, many of which are controlled by the banks, or subsidiaries thereof, are already available. Apple reportedly has a 30% market share in Canada, though it’s unclear how many of them are iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.
Apple Pay is currently compatible with the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch (when paired with a iPhone 5, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, or iPhone 6 Plus).
[source]WSJ[/source]
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