Joann enabled Contactless a few weeks ago, and a few of the stores on the list are out of business like Payless.
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Major Retailers that Support NFC Payments
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I updated the wiki accordingly.
BTW, Tractor Supply and Men's Wearhouse have also supported it for a bit.
I’ve been using ApplePay at Safeway for well over a year. I can’t remember when they implemented it, although I didn’t start shopping at Safeway until 2 years ago. They’re too high priced and they forced so many of their workers in the warehouse in Maryland to find other jobs or be unemployed. I’m on strike against them.
If I’m not mistaken, Safeway is owned and operated by Albertson’s group. That company enabled nfc at all its store brands back in 2017.
Any updates on when Home Depot, Menards or Lowes will start taking NFC/Apple Pay? I can imagine if one starts doing it, the other two will follow, but for now they all seems to be sticking together? Also, Mariano's is annoyingly holding out too.
At this point I don’t think Home Depot, Lowe’s, Walmart, Kroger, HEB or any other holdouts will ever relent unless they are cornered by the card networks, forcing them to choose between either turning on nfc or not accepting any cards at all (i.e., go cash only). I bet that was what made Home Depot and Walmart turn on nfc in Canada, the only country where both of those well known nfc holdouts have ever done that so far.
Likewise, US restaurants (especially the finest ones) won’t ever bother to bring payment to the tables unless they are forced either by bank regulations for security reasons, like in Latin America, or by a requirement to use PIN to authorize all payments, like in the EU (in the US the PIN is currently only used to authorize debit card payments and even that can be avoided by running debit cards as credit).
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I don't see the networks ever doing a contactless mandate here, to be honest. Customer demand may be the only way to force merchants to change, but that assumes demand keeps growing. After all, usage only really kicked off thanks to the pandemic; before then, Apple Pay and similar were languishing at single digit usage levels ever since the former was launched.
Anyway, I think the holdouts are mostly going the "customers prefer not going into the store at all" route. Walmart, for instance, heavily promotes curbside pickup and delivery in the US. It wouldn't surprise me if card not present eventually becomes the majority of transactions and reduces the need for NFC payment in general.
It seems like the US is headed that way. Even at restaurants it’s happening: the very few that have bothered with payment at the table are mostly doing so by turning what was always a card present transaction into some form of card not present transaction (i.e., by having customers scan a QR to pay for the check online or use an app to pay for the check) instead of just using standalone wireless card readers as it would would be done in any other country.
Then we’ll never see contactless take off in the US. Nor will we see it take off in other nearby regions such as Mexico or the rest of Hispanic America and the Caribbean where the use of cash has become more of an abuse and has hardly if at all decreased with the pandemic (with Mexico being the worst offender in that).
Even a lot of restaurant spending could otherwise transition to curbside pickup and delivery. For instance, look at the popularity of services like DoorDash and UberEATS. In person dining, like gas, are probably going to be some of the few categories not readily able to become fully card not present. (Yes, I'm aware those QR code portal things are effectively CNP according to the networks.)
Anyway, perhaps Apple should have had a lot more focus on the app/website support end than on NFC, at least in the US. If that happened, we'd probably have seen more merchant support in that regard.
I'm on mobile so I can't look for specifics right now, but there is hope for the Latin America region in general: https://www.businesswire.com/news/h...-4-in-person-transactions-are-now-contactless
You could very well be right about Mexico, though.
Latin America includes Brazil, though. That’s why I used the term Hispanic America instead: it includes only the countries where spanish is spoken, but doesn’t include Brazil. And in most of those countries, especially in Mexico, cash is used way too excessively for nfc to ever take off.
I agree. I still don’t understand the restaurants prioritizing their own ease and comfort over the customers’ security though. Because, effectively, that was what they did when they chose to get a wired pinpad instead of getting standalone wireless terminals operated independently from their tab system when they had to upgrade from magnetic stripe to chip. Although chip is safer than magnetic stripe, the use of a wired pinpad still requires payments to be processed away from the tables thus heavily reducing if not even effectively eliminating any benefits from the upgrade to chip.
In the press release I had posted, a fair number of Spanish speaking countries have also reached 40-50% penetration. Granted, that could still be 40-50% of a small number of card transactions overall, but still.
Also, keep in mind that Apple recently rolled out Apple Pay in Mexico. If they were holding out before due to lack of merchant adoption, that's probably an indication that they're confident enough in that now. Just need to get regular consumers to follow suit.
Meh, at this point, I've concluded that it's a cultural issue that won't ever fully be resolved in our favor. If in-person dining ultimately ends up widely adopting QR or something for those wanting to use mobile payments, so be it.
Actually it wasn’t due to lack of merchant adoption it took Apple so long to roll out Apple Pay in Mexico, Apple doesn’t even look at that too much. If they did, the US wouldn’t have been the first country to get Apple Pay back in 2014 with only 3% of merchant adoption. Furthermore, if penetration of nfc among merchants were what builds up Apple’s confidence to roll out Apple Pay in a country then I doubt they would have been confident to roll it out in Mexico, where almost all the largest retailers still don’t have nfc at all and pretty much only small merchants and sit down restaurants have it and take apple pay
The real reason they had to hold out for so long was that for Apple Pay to work with Visa and MC cards issued in a certain country, Visa and MC need to be able to process card payments locally in that country. That wasn’t the case in Mexico, where until 2019 all domestic card payments were processed only by two local companies (prosa and e-global), and it isn’t the case in most countries around the world. That’s also why it took them 3-4 years to roll out in Eastern Europe despite the nearly 100% penetration of nfc among merchantsin the region, and why they are still waiting to roll out in most of hispanic America despite the nearly 100% penetration of nfc among merchants in countries such as Guatemala, Chile or Costa Rica.
The big problem in Hispanic America, and especially in Mexico, will be the lack of user adoption. At least in Mexico, a lot of people simply refuse to stop using cash or even reduce its use. And they’re VERY stubborn: even the pandemic didn’t make them change and I bet nothing ever will except maybe for regulations limiting cash acceptance by merchants, which would force people to turn to other forms of payment (I don’t see it happening, though).Thus, if user adoption languished in the US for years, it will be even worse in Mexico and Hispanic America. And we already have an example: Samsung Pay. It failed to take off and just pulled out of Mexico on August 1st 2021 despite nearly 100% acceptance by merchants thanks to its MST technology.
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The US is a special case, I think, due to the fact that the EMV migration was happening at the same time. If Apple had released elsewhere first, I fully suspect that most merchants would have terminals without NFC hardware right now, simply because the larger ones would have had no problems getting Verifone and Ingenico to build special US only models. In fact, the early versions of the Verifone MX925 didn't have NFC hardware by default; you needed to buy the external reader attachment to get that functionality.
That said, it does bring up the question of whether the US would have been better off going QR instead of NFC, especially if it meant not needing Visa or MC. After all, there's been a bunch of animosity towards the card networks for literally decades thanks to interchange fees and other issues; Apple partnering with Venmo or some other QR code payment scheme for Apple Pay would have possibly been even more of a shot in the arm for mobile payments than its NFC based implementation. On the other hand, QR is an older technology and it's not really Apple's style to implement such--otherwise, they would have bought LoopPay's patents before Samsung and done MST themselves instead.
In the press release about Apple's new tap to pay solution for merchants, they mention NFC payments are accepted by 90% of US merchants. Does anyone else believe that? Two years ago, it was 75%, and not that many major retailers have added it since then. Here's my list of retailers that still don't have it. These major chains have 175k locations nationwide.
Walmart 5000
Winco 130
Sams Club 600
Home Depot 2000
Lowes 1800
Hobby Lobby 600
Kroger 3000
Michaels 1200
Menards 335
HEB 350
Harris Teeter 260
Belk 300
FYE 200
USPS 34,450
Wendy’s 6700
Taco Bueno 140
Chicken Express 200
Golden Chic 180
Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone
Apple today announced plans to introduce Tap to Pay on iPhone, empowering merchants in the US to accept contactless payments.
www.apple.com
Walmart 5000
Winco 130
Sams Club 600
Home Depot 2000
Lowes 1800
Hobby Lobby 600
Kroger 3000
Michaels 1200
Menards 335
HEB 350
Harris Teeter 260
Belk 300
FYE 200
USPS 34,450
Wendy’s 6700
Taco Bueno 140
Chicken Express 200
Golden Chic 180
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Depending on what your definition of "retailer" is, the 90% figure could easily be true.
Also, Wendy's is going to add support soon if the rumors are true, not to mention QFC (Kroger) already does and could easily go to the rest of the company whenever they feel like it. I also remember FYE having it before, so while I haven't been back in quite a while it's possible they do have it again.
In the press release about Apple's new tap to pay solution for merchants, they mention NFC payments are accepted by 90% of US merchants. Does anyone else believe that? Two years ago, it was 75%, and not that many major retailers have added it since then. Here's my list of retailers that still don't have it. These major chains have 175k locations nationwide.
Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone
Apple today announced plans to introduce Tap to Pay on iPhone, empowering merchants in the US to accept contactless payments.www.apple.com
Walmart 5000
Winco 130
Sams Club 600
Home Depot 2000
Lowes 1800
Hobby Lobby 600
Kroger 3000
Michaels 1200
Menards 335
HEB 350
Harris Teeter 260
Belk 300
FYE 200
USPS 34,450
Wendy’s 6700
Taco Bueno 140
Chicken Express 200
Golden Chic 180
It blows that the most domiant home improvement stores (at least in Chicago area) are not taking Apple Pay or NFC payments, as if there where part of some conspiracy. I know we also have Ace Hardware, but Ace in my opinion is not at the same level as Home Deport, Lowes and Menards unfortunatelly.
Home Depot at least seems to be pushing curbside pickup pretty heavily. And I imagine a lot of their business is using their financing (especially those tradespeople who are part of the Pro program), too, so it's possible that adding contactless won't really do much for them.
Of course, since they already did it in Canada, you'd think they might as well also bring it to the US. Even if most everyone who shops there still inserts and/or orders online.
In the press release about Apple's new tap to pay solution for merchants, they mention NFC payments are accepted by 90% of US merchants. Does anyone else believe that? Two years ago, it was 75%, and not that many major retailers have added it since then. Here's my list of retailers that still don't have it. These major chains have 175k locations nationwide.
Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone
Apple today announced plans to introduce Tap to Pay on iPhone, empowering merchants in the US to accept contactless payments.www.apple.com
Walmart 5000
Winco 130
Sams Club 600
Home Depot 2000
Lowes 1800
Hobby Lobby 600
Kroger 3000
Michaels 1200
Menards 335
HEB 350
Harris Teeter 260
Belk 300
FYE 200
USPS 34,450
Wendy’s 6700
Taco Bueno 140
Chicken Express 200
Golden Chic 180
I believe that percentage likely doesn’t include businesses other than stores that take credit cards but mostly don’t do contactless such as restaurants, gas stations, post offices, government offices, doctor and veterinarian offices, hotels, sport clubs, gyms, car wash facilities, airlines, etc. Add all those to the count and the percentage drops a lot, like probably down to 50%.
Only if your definition of retailer is limited to stores and fast food joints. Add sit down restaurants, hotels, gas stations and other types of businesses and the percentage drops sharply. At restaurants it’s nearly 0% since they’re stuck in 1980 processing payments away from the tables. At gas stations, likewise, since most still have the old magnetic stripe readers built into the pumps.