Why Hasn’t Apple Pay Replicated Alipay’s Success? (2020) | Hacker News Reader

Why Hasn’t Apple Pay Replicated Alipay’s Success? (2020)

hbr.org

10 pointsValentineC16 comments

ApplePay is built on top of the existing credit card infrastructure and all the merchant fees that come with it. Making a transaction slightly more convenient for a customer is not much of an incentive for a business owner when the customer can already pay with a card. Plus, what incentive does a merchant have for allowing ApplePay when they have to fork over an additional 0.15% on the transaction?

The sorry state of the industry is that the payment network processors have absolutely no interest in reducing their inflation-proof fee schedule. Unless Apple made its own network from the ground up with dramatically lower fees, it was never going to take off with merchants.

I love Apple Pay as of today. I rarely need my credit card anymore for transactions.

I caught myself without the ability to buy gas. Shell gas stations in the SF Bay Area have NFC readers but I’ve never found one that works at all.

I was near empty of gas, pulled into a Shell hoping it worked with Apple Pay. Waved the iPhone over the reader, “Card not supported.” Realized also I had left my physical wallet at home.

I literally maybe need my physical card once every two weeks when running errands. Everything else is Apple Pay.

Okay, maybe you can explain it to me, because I never quite got the appeal.

Even if you want to use Apple Pay 100% of the time, don't you have to carry a wallet for your driver's license at least? What's the big benefit for not putting a card, or worst case, a $20 note, in said wallet, for emergencies or even "Oh cool! A yard sale!" moments?

It feels like we're still a few years off from "everything on your phone" at least in the US.

I live in Australia, where most large banks support Apple Pay and all payment terminals support it too. That's probably a result of the Aussie market's love of contactless - for normal shopping, practically nobody swipes a card anymore when you can just tap and go.

Apple Pay takes that a step further and I can now tap and go from my phone. It's incredibly convenient because I know it's supported everywhere with a payment terminal. And I do have a wallet, with my driver's license, my card, my public transport card and a few notes in it - it just stays in the glovebox of my car if I'm getting groceries or going shopping somewhere. That way I don't have to worry about losing it or having it stolen. Plus, for doing everyday things, I don't really feel like I have a need to keep ID on me at all times - and if I do, I just bring my license.

I'm wondering how soon we'll see driving licenses and other official IDs stored on the phone. A few years sounds optimistic.

Singapore has introduced digital driving licences [1] and national identity cards [2], but retrieving the information requires internet access and cannot be cached in-app due to government security policies [3].

[1] https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/motorists-can-still-r...

[2] https://www.singpass.gov.sg/singpass/common/shownric

[3] As told to me by someone working on the project

Very interesting, thanks

We've had this for about a year in NSW, Australia. Alongside the fact that all the payment terminals here support contactless payments, this means that i do not need to carry my wallet, ever.

Having spent a bit of time in China using Alipay and Wechat to pay for things, the biggest difference is convenience. The QR codes that drive those systems are literally everywhere and much more convenient than NFC chips. Its much faster in a lot of cases to zap the QR code than wave or hold, or hold and wave your phone over a terminal that seems to require you to hold your tongue at a particular angle before it works, and then the sluggish performance of the actual payment is painful.

Alipay and wechat are really fast. Plus in a lot of cases the vendors have no need of a terminal at all, just a printout of their QR and a phone to initiate the transaction.

It might seem primitive compared to apple pay, or google pay, but its incredibly sophisticated and offers a much lower barrier of entry to vendors. When I got home I missed it especially for small purchases.

I've never been to China, so don't know how fast Alipay is, but in my experience (from Europe), you need to put your phone/watch near the POS terminal for around 2 seconds, and payment is processed in like 5 seconds.

That sounds faster than here (australia). Using the NFC in a debit card is faster than a phone so it might just be our local payment processors adding friction.

I'm pretty sure the big difference is that Apple built on top of credit card infrastructure and Alipay (from what it sounds like) is its own payment system. I'm guessing that's a larger regulatory hurdle in the US and many companies wish they could.

The sluggish performance and fickleness is 100% on the terminal. You can see an analog in how physical credit cards work on different terminals. Some you must insert your credit card only at the designated time. Too early and the cashier needs to tap a few buttons to reset the process. You must not remove the card prematurely. Other terminals you can insert your card whenever and it scans it pretty quick--usually before they're done ringing up items. Similarly, some terminals prompt early for ApplePay, aren't specific about which part you wave your hand over, and are almost instantaneous in completing. Others are the exact opposite.

Alipay and wechat are linked directly to a chinese bank account, so avoid mastercard or visa altogether. I don't know for sure but the big credit card companies do add something of a delay to everything.

Because there is much more competition of payments processors and solutions on the west than on the east.

ApplePay isn't cross platform... its limited to the Apple ecosystem of users.

There are also Google/Garmin/Samsung Pay, which IME work the same, from the consumer point of view.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com