Apple Pay Now Accounts for Three-Fourths of U.S. Contactless Payments | Hacker News Reader

Apple Pay Now Accounts for Three-Fourths of U.S. Contactless Payments

fortune.com

59 pointsprostoalex107 comments

When I first got an iPhone with Apple Pay, I felt ridiculous pulling it out to buy groceries. It felt gimmicky, like I was showing off. That changed when my grocery store started requiring chipped cards to use the chip. AP easily shaves 20-30 seconds off the transaction. I can pay while items are still being scanned, I don't have to remember to remove the card, and the auth process is just faster. Works well enough for me that it's now my primary payment method when it's accepted.

>It felt gimmicky, like I was showing off.

the early adopter's tradeoff for all tech i suppose.

Can't upvote this enough. The new "insert card" bullshit is a perfect example of a small group of powerful companies having a monopoly and being completely out of touch with the wants of their users. We took an obsolete magnetic media that worked fast and efficient and somehow made the user experience much worse. Top that off with the fact that fraud protection is much better on credit card purchases thanks to automated data analysis and we end up with an inferior product that didn't really need to be upgraded in the first place. I bet this credit card insertion issue is going to become a case study for business students everywhere in a couple of years.

> I bet this credit card insertion issue is going to become a case study for business students everywhere in a couple of years.

Maybe in America. In the rest of the world, we have had chipped cards for years (Canada, Europe) and people don't have a problem using them.

And there aren't monthly mass data leaks of cards.

At least in England, same for contactless payments with cards issued by the banks.

Keep in mind, we don't have chip-and-pin like you have. We have chip-wait-print-find-a-pen-then-sign-a-paper :( I'd totally be hapaying with chip/pin

I haven't done that in so long I forgot how it used to be in the past..

I live in Germany and I think this could be simplified:

- Items are scanned

- The cashier tells you the amount

- You mention that you'll pay with your card, usually showing it is enough too

- The cashier activates the chip scanner

- You insert your card to the reader

- Wait a second or two, the screen changes to "Enter PIN"

- You enter your PIN and press the green button

- You wait around 5 seconds and hopefully it says "{success_message}\n\n Please remove your card"

- You remove the card and put it back to your wallet

- Receipt is printed, the cashier discards it if you don't take it. Sometimes they ask if you want to take it.

For purchases less than 25€ you only have to hold your card close to the reader and it will work without PIN, for amounts higher than that you also don't have to insert rhe card but again just hold it close to it and enter the PIN. At least that's the situation in Austria nowadays.

> an obsolete magnetic media that worked fast and efficient

And got erased if held too close to magnets, or got scratched and unreadable.

> and somehow made the user experience much worse

That seems to be a problem with implementation, not technology. Outside of the US, I could use contactless payment with a card for years. I could also use chip payment under a specified limit without putting in PIN. Even if all that fails, terminals which are actually connected and don't use dial up on every payment take just a few seconds to authorize each transaction.

The US payment systems dragged their feet for so long now you get to experience payments in Europe from early 00s.

According to 2014 Gallup Crime Poll, 69% of Americans worry about having their credit card info stolen, and 27% have already been hit.

And despite the anti-fraud automated data analysis, losses per $100 having been growing from 2010 to 2014, when they reached $16 billion, of which the US accounted for half, despite only generating 21% of transaction volume.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/178856/hacking-tops-list-crimes-a...

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150804007054/en/Glob...

Wow, this is first time I see someone claiming that chip is inferior to magnetic stripe on card. I don't even remember when I had to use magstripe… But I do remember cashiers swiping cards repeatedly and then putting them into the plasctic bag so they could be read. Zero problems with chip.

Isn't there something like Paywave there? I used it for 90% of my transactions in Canada. Only have to use Chip n Pin when going over $50.

Aren't you able to just tap your chip card on the terminal without a pin for purchases less than ~$100?

I live in Australia and this is literally everywhere.

As always, the US is a little behind the times on this too - most credit cards here don't have contactless yet. (I have one that does but its a rarity)

Oddly enough, I remember several of my cards having a contactless option circa 2009. None of them do now. I'm not sure why, as that was a fantastically useful feature.

It's the same here in the UK.

Contactless cards are on the rise here and are incredibly convenient - moreso than Apple/Android pay, IMO. You don't have to wake a card up to use it and the batteries never run out!

http://www.theukcardsassociation.org.uk/contactless_contactl...

I'd actually argue contactless cards are ubiquitous now.

£30 in the UK, $52 AUD with a standard card. There’s some talk that Apple Pay might become effectively unlimited because it’s backed up by a biometric token too.

I'm an Australian expat and one of the surprising things I discovered is that no, you can't do that. Despite the US being technically ahead in so many areas (like internet speed), regular banking here is stone age. It's like going back in time around a decade.

Until some time last year most stores didn't even accept cards with chips (they still swiped), it's still normal to "authorize" a transaction with a signature (even with a chip) and many things you interact with (particularly landlords) still expect you to pay with pieces of paper (cheques, money orders).

Not to mention that your account numbers are closely guarded secrets because your account number is all that's needed for literally anyone to withdraw money from your account.

Admittedly, there are some areas in finance where they're kinda ahead. Micro-loans are interesting and new for example. Day to day purchases are around a decade behind though.

I think a better market to look at for contactless payments is Australia. Over here we use them for everything. Apple pay has just started rolling out and pretty much 95% of places I've shopped/eaten at support it. If you're curious about adoption rate, it's a good case study as there's an existing contactless credit card system already in place.

"The consumer in the U.K., Australia and Canada is able to use the same form factor everywhere she shops. The contactless card that she taps one place is the same card that she dips at merchants that may not be contactless-enabled. In those places and in those markets, consumers don’t have to put away a contactless card and pull out another form factor to pay for something at a merchant she likes to visit.

Yet, that’s what the consumer is being asked to do in the U.S." [1]

It seems the UK and Australia's concentrated banking/payments sectors (e.g. Barclays drives 40% of British credit and debit spend and has 38% of the British merchant acquirer space [1]) facilitated a fast and coördinated roll-out.

That said, to what degree was Apple Pay designed for in-app, versus meatspace, purchasing? (Irrespective of how it was pitched to JPMorgan and friends.)

[1] http://www.pymnts.com/nfc/2016/uk-lessons-for-us-mobile-paym...

The problem is that it's just more fiddly to pay for things using my phone than my card, which makes the use case pretty small (times when I have my phone but not my wallet).

I do like that once I've linked my card to Samsung Pay I get instant transaction notifications whether I actually pay with my phone or with my card though.

It is more fiddly, but it's also considerably more secure. I prefer it for that reason, and intend to disable tap on my cards soon, using them only as chip cards when tap isn't supported.

edit: this is all wrong:

The Australian banks make a lot of money off interchange fees. Apple wants a cut of the interchange fee to get access to Apple Pay (which is what ANZ did recently). This has slowed the Apple Pay rollout, but not because banks don't want to share the fee.

By all accounts, the banks do want to be on Apple Pay, but each bank wants to give Apple the same cut as its competitors do (or at least, not a higher cut). And that's a problem because if they collectively negotiate the same amount, they could be accused of anti-competitive behaviour. They've recently gone to the competition regulator to get permission to negotiate with Apple as a bloc.[1]

[1]http://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-big-australian-banks-a...

You are pretty much totally wrong. Australian banks make much less from interchange fees than their US counterparts. Apple wanted the same fee in Australia as it collects in the US. With interchange fees being smaller in Australia this cut represented a much bigger portion of the total fee. The banks here have also already invested a lot of money and effort in driving contactless payments by issuing all cards with the technology for at least the last few years plus providing the payment terminals. They therefore think Apple is providing less value than in the USA and should thus be entitled to a smaller cut when an Apple Pay transaction happens.

When they banks applied to the competition regulator for permission to collectively bargain with Apple they specifically undertook to negotiate about fees individually. What the banks want to collectively negotiate is access to the NFC hardware on Apple devices so they can provide their own digital wallets and bypass Apple Pay.

Um. Yes. I did actually describe the opposite of what is in the articles didn't I?

Canada will provide better metrics soon enough. Nearly every bank there has rolled out Apple Pay system, and contactless payments are ubiquitous in Canada. Apple Pay is only available for ANZ here, while rest of the banks are rolling out their crappy payment apps.

Absolutely. After 3 months of using it I have only withdrawn cash from an ATM twice.

It's slightly amusing to watch the cashier have a moment of confusion as I ask to 'pay by card' then proceed to do nothing whilst I wait for them to get the EFTPOS terminal ready. They expect some kind of shuffling to produce a card instead I extend my wrist out to pay with an Apple Watch.

Can't wait to see what numbers come out from this, interested to know % of Apple Pay transactions on activated cards.

I live in Australia and since we already have contactless payments everywhere I don't understand the benefit/s Apple Pay provides over tapping my card on the terminal. Am I missing something?

Easy budgeting. No need to carry card. If your Visa gets lost, Apple Pay automatically updates to new card without waiting for a physical card. Some of the benefits that I have seen.

No card is the only real benefit.

Contactless payment has been rolled out in many places in Holland over the past year or two, and while that decreases the benefit of using your phone, it's still slightly easier to pull out your phone than to take a card out of a wallet, pay, then put it back in.

For me that would be enough of an improvement to switch.

I keep my card in my phone case, so I just wave my phone over contactless sensor. And even before I wouldn't bother taking it out of the wallet and simply tapped the wallet itself.

Yep. Apple Pay uses a one time authorization code and not your card numbers, etc... The merchant does not get your card number or name. They can only use that authorization code for one transaction. Even if your PIN is stolen, the thief still cannot access your account.

Contactless cards do exactly that. There is no advantage in using Apple Pay

Contactless cards work the same.

In my view the secure enclave and one-time use authorization are the killer things about Apple Pay, not the contactless part. The merchant/cashier doesn't see my name and doesn't have my card number.

Here in Switzerland, nearly every terminal supports contactless payments and Apple Pay has launched ~1 month ago.

Yet, next to nobody uses it because it's generally not available even though it has officially launched: Nearly all of the banks here are boycotting it and are pushing their own mobile payment startup [1] which also has much worse usability and was initially launched by the Swiss post, a company that still thinks that a 4 digit pin on their debit card is good enough.

1) https://www.twint.ch/en/

New Postcards ship with 6 digit PINs, so there's a little progress there. Twint feels like a step back though...

Verivox made a survey* about Swiss credit cards supporting Apple Pay, I've just ordered a 'Simply VISA Card'. Apple Pay is the reason that I'm actually paying for a credit card for the first time.

* = https://www.verivox.ch/nachrichten/welche-schweizer-kreditka...

> Swiss post, a company that still thinks that a 4 digit pin on their debit card is good enough

How many examples can you provide of a 4 digit card pin being brute forced? Is there any other scenario where a 4 digit pin has been compromised but a 6 digit pin would be safe?

4 digit codes are even easier to shoulder-surf than the 6 digit ones.

Same here in France, Apple Pay is launching against a user base that is very welcome to using NFC payment by debit card, banks that are trying to launch their own broken mobile payment solution as a paid option, and mobile operators that require special SIMs and apps that you must at best sideload if they're outright not requiring a device bought from the operator store with a custom firmware. Oh and there's Fivory, the startup that's obviously better because it's French (you know, like french cars, French people are overly infatuated with home-made stuff).

Hopefully Android Pay comes soon, so that most mobile phones get a ready to use native solution and all this crap gets swiped under the rug.

At the moment Apple Pay have only two supporting banks: Swiss bankers and Corner. Now that Twint and Paymit are merging, they have most major banks and shops (Credit Suisse, Postfinance, Raiffeisen, UBS, ZKB, Migros, Coop, Swisscom) behind them, so I think Apple will struggle. Also, unlike other markets I think Switzerland has a very low usage of contactless payments. I rarely see anyone use them but maybe that will change with the rise of Twint (e.g putting little Twint signs next to every terminal).

Even at the current state Apple Pay is outperforming Twint and Paymit combined. In a few weeks Apple Pay will have surpassed the combined Twint and Paymit volume. In a year or two it will become obvious that Twint and Paymit are going nowhere and everybody will offer Apple Pay. At least one big issuer besides Cornèr already supports Apple Pay but hasn't rolled it out yet for political reasons.

Until then, vote with your wallet, cancel your credit card, get a CornèrCard or derivative like BonusCard. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter who your issuer is.

It's interesting reading about chip+pin and contactless payments in the US - in Australia 95%+ of transactions are chip+pin, and 70% of that (almost all transactions under $100) are contactless.

The system isn't perfect, and anecdotal stories from LEOs indicate fraud has risen due to the low friction of contactless transactions, but obviously it's not too big a problem for the banks to wear (as all fraudulent contactless transactions are the bank's problem, not the card owner's).

The US Chip + Signature system is 1000x worse than the Chip + Pin systems I've experienced in any other contry

I've run into two setups here in Oregon that require you to swipe first (inserting wont start the process at all), then it tells you to insert, then waits for ever, then pin, then another long wait, then approved. No idea how they managed to screw it up that badly. I've used it elsewhere and it was really fast.

Whats worse is some stores have it where you can insert, but when you do it says "swipe card". Like it detects you inserted but refuses to run it that way. I really just don't get it.

I work in retail. Failing to start processing upon insertion is a bug, the screen telling you to insert is a warning that you did the wrong thing not an expected part of the process. I have seen a weird issue wherein some cards, always the same cards don't start processing until you try and fail to swipe. I have no idea what the difference is as it doesn't seem to be a single issuing bank.

It seems to be whatever model terminal they're using.

One other example is chase. Their ATMs still make you insert, pull out, then stick back in. Ive yet to have one take the card first try.

The same machine worked properly with 99% of cards I think its fixed and its no longer required.

The problem with a pin system is that I have a like 8 cards that I use pretty randomly. While any of them can have a pin, the only one I know is my ATM card. I can't imagine how people do this with multiple cards and multiple pins without a password manager or some algorithm.

May I ask why you have eight cards? Is that common in your part of the world?

I've got three cards: personal account, business account, and credit cards. I don't remember the credit card PIN since I rarely need it, so that leaves two PINs. I'm already having a hard time remember my business card PIN since I don't use it much. Can't imagine having to carry around eight and remembering all those PINs!

Eight was an exaggeration. It's five, counting my ATM card. They're all personal accounts. I only know the PIN for the ATM. They're all on autopay and it's not like I come anywhere close to the limit on them, so it doesn't matter.

I kept my Australian bank issued Visa card for a while when I first moved to Thailand, and used it while we were getting stuff set up locally.

Even though it's never presented locally, with that card cashiers would often get the "sign or pin" prompt on the terminal, and then ask me (or gesture if their English wasn't great), and I'd usually pick pin, which would then produce a slip with "No signature required" printed, which they would then insist I sign.

Just in the last few months I've noticed more contactless terminals at larger stores (particularly the nation-wide chains) but I can't imagine what confusing unnecessary process they'll end up using for that...

Thailand is a massively cash based society, especially with that whole "nobody pay their taxes" thing. Credit card are mostly used to take money out of the atm.

Yeah, I'm aware of that aspect, but I've never been anywhere else where the staff can't follow a simple instruction (No signature required) because they are so ingrained that card === signature.

Also, for the younger generation (i.e. 20s/30s) I think credit cards are much more popular than their parents generation - my sister-in-law and her husband (both Thai, so not influenced by western approach) use cards most places they can, while my mother in law regularly has anything up to 100K THB in her handbag.

Canada is like that. Few times it's printed out a signature slip the cashier looked as if I just tried to rob them.

Signing actually helps against fraud: Signatures can be compared, PINs cannot – and you can be made liable … :(

> Signing actually helps against fraud: Signatures can be compared, PINs cannot – and you can be made liable … :(

cough There is specimen of your signature on the back of the card cough

No one looks at those. I always scribble, never doing my actual signature. Hell on those digital pads, I literally just draw a horizontal line. Never had a single problem.

I don't think that there's an actual legal difference (though IANAL) here. Signatures and PINs are both effectively affirmations of consent, and only the authorized cardholder is contractually allowed to consent. If you deny that you gave that consent the process should be the same either way, you sign an affidavit to that effect if the CC/bank wants you to.

The difference is that not just anyone can draw an X on a terminal after skimming your card to pretend to be you. They need an extra piece of information to do so. They are still breaking the law by using your card, and it's still something the processor has insurance against.

Signatures are absolutely worthless as far as preventing fraud. In the first place the proposed thief has access to the signature in question, signatures on electronic pads are horrid, and cashiers aren't trained handwriting experts.

Basically anyone could make a signature enough like the signature visible on the back of the card on the electronic card to be no worse than the average signature as far as the average person verifying it is concerned.

This is why zero fucks are given regarding how authentic your signature looks even if they look at your card. The 2 things that do prevent fraud are verifying id and cards that have pictures of the user on them.

I've watched while my wife, at a Thai bank, is told by the cashier at the counter "I'm sorry, your signature doesn't match close enough, it should look like this <shows signature-on-file> can you try it again?" when filling in a withdrawal slip for 200K (about $7K USD).

I had something similar years ago in Australia. I went into a branch, my signature had changed a LOT, and I couldn't match the old one. So they promptly updated my signature on file, based purely on the fact that I had my card and knew the pin (I don't even remember showing them my ID).

I haven't used cash in Australia in the past year. Contactless payments on any purchase under $100 is dead simple and it's a lot easier to tap a bit of plastic that authenticate and use a phone.

I find it's useful to stick to cash as a budgeting measure. It's too simple to lose track of how much you're spending when the amounts are effectively invisible. I'll make a cash withdrawal and then try to make it last without contactless payments.

That's interesting - I have the totally opposite experience. I've been using a card for most of my purchases since I was 13 years old, and I'm so used to budgeting by analysing my internet banking transactions (previously the paper statements) that when I'm forced to get out cash to buy something, I am extremely carefree with how I spend the change.

Once the transaction is there on my internet banking, it feels to me like the money is already spent - so if I have to get $50 out to pay $30 somewhere that doesn't take cash, I'll just spend the other $20 on whatever without thinking! Whereas I'm a lot more careful with the card because I know I'll see it in my transactions later.

I think the main reason I started using Apple Pay in my regular shopping is because paying with chip takes so long to process. Sometimes it can take 20-30 seconds for the chip transaction to complete at the grocery store, while Apple Pay takes 5 seconds or less.

I really miss the speed of magstripe payments.

Is so slow the chip processsing in the USA? Here in Spain is very fast

Just got back from the UK. Nearly everything is contactless. Blows my mind how in the USA credit card companies see chip-and-signature as the solution to fraud. I really need someone to explain this to me!

3/4 of nothing.

It's frustrating how the US is the only country I travel to where I cannot use my non American NFC cards. Half the terminals I encounter really only accept apple pay or a form thereof.

At this point it's amazing the number of terminals with chip capabilities which aren't even enabled

Huh. Contactless cards effectively don't exist in the US, but I'd expect any Apple Pay-compatible system to accept your card as well. Sounds like its more foreign bank issues (eg, the banks can't agree on rules) than a technology issue. NFC is NFC.

In this case, EMV = EMV is the better comparison.

NFC is not NFC. The US NFC often is MSD and not EMV. Also many terminals explicitly only permit Android and Apple Pay. Not a general issue. I used my cards in many other countries, only ever an issue in the US.

European banks have been able to allow cross-border operations for decades. The "banks can't agree on rules" is mostly an american problem.

From the article:

> Apple hasn’t revealed exact volume or usage numbers

> without a baseline usage number, it’s impossible know whether the current volume is significant.

I really don't get what the whole hoopla about contact less payment is in the US we have had contact less payment cards for years now. And now they are working on a system that can use android pay and other nfc payment systems for mrt and bus services as well. Currently we can use the same nfc debit/credit card we have but it has a separate top up system.

I don't quite follow if you're in the US or not. I've only once in my life seen a US bank-issued contactless card; It was a debit card I had with Union Bank of California, which I never used because it was a side savings account I rarely touched.

I don't know who "we" is, or who is deploying NFC payments for MRT (?) and bus services. I also don't get why using the same nfc debit/credit cards requires a separate top-up system.

Anyway, I've had great experience with Apple Pay, just need NFC more widely adopted in the US. It's amazing how few places have even EMV readers active. It's great to be able to go out for a run or whatever, take my phone with me, and be able to buy coffee on my way home without having to worry about a separate payment device. Yes, credit cards are far smaller than a phone, but it's still one more thing to remember.

I've used Apple Pay with my US-based bank cards in a number of countries; many places had never even seen someone pay with a phone before. Memorably, a petrol station in New Zealand in April 2015, and more surprisingly, somewhere in Denmark or Sweden a couple of months ago (!).

... and an increasing portion of the fraud. Apparently CHIP+PIN is making POS fraud harder so theives are moving to Apple Pay. Unfortunately I don't have details on how they use Apple Pay. It might be all social engineering for all I know.

one example: http://www.nbcbayarea.com/blogs/press-here/Cybercriminals-Fi...

I just re-read the community guidelines and I'm not sure why this was downvoted. Help?

3 fourths?! Who calls 3/4 fraction like this?

This might be one of the few signs that Apple is giving out that it is moving more into the software field.

> ...that it is moving more into the software field.

Wow, if Apple is only just moving into the software field, they must have some killer apps on the way.

Last I checked nobody used contactless payments in the first place.

Really? In Canada, almost everyone uses them and almost everywhere supports them

Also very widely in Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

Some American visitors were recently surprised when I said interbank transfers clear within the hour. The environment in the US is quite different to the rest of the world.

It's definitely a US thing. Here in Australia, everyone hardly uses Apple Pay and all major banks have their own cards/app that does NFC payments.

I find it really strange that it is not widely adopted in the US since it removes a lot of friction when it comes to paying for stuff ergo encourages more business. I.e. my usual coffee joint was always packed in the mornings and since they adopted NFC payments a few years back, I noticed the usual bottleneck queue of people paying at the cashier is significantly less unless someone starts jiggling for coins.

Experience here is the complete opposite. When I buy a coffee I hand the guy a few bucks and leave. If the clown in front of me starts waving their iPhone at the terminal, I start rolling my eyes and tapping my fingers.

Contactless from credit/debit cards are a lot faster and more reliable. You just tap the card against the chip reader. In the rare occasion where it doesn't work (e.g. cost is too high, too many purchases per day) you can just slot the card into the slot and enter pin - which takes maybe 10 seconds instead of 1.

As one of those "clowns" I wish there were more like you as I'm always waiting for someone to grab exact change. You can even order from your phone at some places... actually, the order process is what I find also slows things down. I'd love to put in my order directly by phone and skip that line entirely.

Tipping probably has something to do with this. On US EFTPOS terminals you're prompted to add a tip/percentage/cash/okay/okay/okay/pay with card.

In Australia you're given a total, the cashier sees the card in your hand, asks "Paypass?", and bang, it's done. Entire transaction is over in <10 seconds, and the only customer interaction with the terminal is waving a card over the top of it.

Additionally, the lack of tipping means that people who pay with cash expect their exact change back and will wait for it, or will fish around for coins to find the exact amount, which slows down transaction processes.

10 seconds would be the extreme end of things. Most of the time it takes more like 3 or maybe 4.

Worse, they're using an affinity card, which takes extra time.

Even worse, they're being signed up for an affinity card, which takes several minutes.

Well, people don't have to jiggle for coins. They can just swipe the card, which is usually just as fast if not faster than NFC, and pretty much guaranteed to work 99.99% of the time whereas NFC has failed on my at least 20% of the times.

Yeah, but I see people using cards contactlessly (oof..) but rarely using their phone, and when I do it seems clunky and awkward...

I've been using my Apple Watch With Apple Pay for the past few months and all it takes is to tap my wrist to the terminal

I had heard that contactless was moving backwards in Canada; used to be more widespread but now fewer places accept it. True?

I don't have hard statistics, but it seems as common as ever. I use tap2pay every day.

Anecdata: I think there was a period where stores didn't know they had it on on their POS', so it was a little more widespread out of the gate and then went back down as they disabled it. But that process seems more than reversed now.

For the most part the holdouts have been restaurants, as many POS devices had the tip/authorize order backwards (if enabled, tap would bypass the tip step). That's changing now and I've been to a few restaurants with tap now.

Not in my experience. I've found more places slowly accepting it as the few with the remaining old terminals that only supported chip+pin are being replaced by newer units that have contactless.

A year or two ago I used to rarely see the contactless part taped over with a message saying "No paypass" or whatever, but I can't remember the last time I saw that anywhere. Even Costco now takes contactless up to $200 now.

Most of my friends use Apple pay in cabs in New York and in Whole Foods.

You're right. Usage in the U.S. is falling [1] and low compared to other markets, e.g. the U.K. and Canada [2].

[1] "[As of March 2016] only 3.5 percent of eligible transactions for those consumers are via Apple Pay, down from 5.9 percent in March of 2015 and 4.6 percent in October. Eligible transactions are those where the consumer has the right phone and merchants have the right enabling POS technology — that is the intersection of consumers with iPhone 6/6S’s and merchants with contactless terminals."

http://www.pymnts.com/apple-pay-tracker/2016/apple-pays-big-...

[2] http://www.pymnts.com/nfc/2016/uk-lessons-for-us-mobile-paym...

I use it whenever I can, which honestly is pretty much only when I go to McDonald's.

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