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Apple Launches Tap to Pay on iPhone in Australia

This article makes me realize I probably have a misunderstanding about Tap to Pay -- so help educate me :)

So, I always thought that if a vendor accepts contactless payment (e.g., a credit card or debit card in which you just tap using the built-in NFC chip) that it also means they would be able to accept Tap to Pay from iPhone that have NFC and the Apple Watch. So that's not the case?

My mental model always was that the iPhone NFC chip is simple an equivalent version of the NFC chip in the credit card.

Inform me! :)


UPDATE: Ok, I think I'm even more misinformed than I thought. Hahah. So in reading that Apple announcement, it looks like Tap to Pay is using one's iPhone to accept payments? Is that right? If so, that is indeed not what I was thinking about.
 
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joshuapending said:
Ah yeah no one will use this. Every retailer here already has contactless payment for the last 15-20 years why would they use this? only place i could see a use is maybe if you had a small market stall or something like that.
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I think it will be a huge hit at local farmers markets and art/craft fair events. Even the local drug dealers may take advantage of this.
 
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Why the hell hasn't this launched in the UK yet, what's the hold up, banks, Apple or both?

With contactless being very heavily used here they need to get this launched far quicker.
 
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I'm guessing that New Zealand isn't included, even though Apple NZ is run out of Australia, is because there would be very little uptake here. The banks charge merchants a considerable fee for accepting credit cards, and particularly tap to pay, so most shop either don't accept tap to pay, or charge 3% (or more) extra if you use it. Nearly everyone uses EFTPOS for shops and credit cards online.
 
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contacos said:
I thought there was a whole thing about bakeries complaining last year for having to upgrade their system to be able to provide receipts? It had something to do with money laundering somehow
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Some legislator finally got around to watching season two of Weeds and freaked out.
 
msackey said:
This article makes me realize I probably have a misunderstanding about Tap to Pay -- so help educate me :)

So, I always thought that if a vendor accepts contactless payment (e.g., a credit card or debit card in which you just tap using the built-in NFC chip) that it also means they would be able to accept Tap to Pay from iPhone that have NFC and the Apple Watch. So that's not the case?

My mental model always was that the iPhone NFC chip is simple an equivalent version of the NFC chip in the credit card.

Inform me! :)


UPDATE: Ok, I think I'm even more misinformed than I thought. Hahah. So in reading that Apple announcement, it looks like Tap to Pay is using one's iPhone to accept payments? Is that right? If so, that is indeed not what I was thinking about.
Click to expand...
100% correct. So instead of paying for a Square or Paypal reader and the associated costs with those companies, you can have an account with the respective Bank and use just the iPhone.

I don’t know what the Westpac & Tyro fees are, but they can’t be worse than Square/PayPal. For me the issue is that if I am doing random jobs for people, I don’t always have my square scanner thingy or have it charged up all the time. Then you have to pair it etc. Phone would be so much easier.
 
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bLackjackj said:
Did you miss the heading? Not every story has to be US centric, give us a little sugar 😏🇦🇺
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It wasn't that long ago in the US that couldn't even tap a regular physical card. Tried during a trip in 2014 and the store clerk looked at me weird as to what was I doing, we'd had it in Aus for years. So whilst in this instance we might be lagging, in others we have been ahead too
 
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MacDownunder said:
It wasn't that long ago in the US that couldn't even tap a regular physical card. Tried during a trip in 2014 and the store clerk looked at me weird as to what was I doing, we'd had it in Aus for years. So whilst in this instance we might be lagging, in others we have been ahead too
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I was in Florida (Miami & Orlando) in 2018 and they looked at me with a question mark when I had a card with chip like the receipt said PIN VERIFIED and they still asked me to sign even though there wasn’t a field to sign because PIN VERIFIED was written in its place. They were like „eh just sign here“. Happened multiple times
 
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brilliantthings said:
Still no support on the Australian Square app. I wonder if Apple told Square in advance?
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It won’t work with Square. Only Westpac and Tyra at this stage who have signed up for it. It’s an Apple Pay service. When it's fully mainstream, it will be a 'kind of' competitor to Square as it would be with PayPal and many others.
 
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