How many average joe's carry an American Express? They need Visa/Mastercard and some well-known retailers to make this work from the get-go.
The retail penetration, however, is the barrier. If you can't use these things mostly everywhere, this service is going to be no more successful than Google Wallet.
The second issue is fragmentation. Look at wireless charging. Two separate solutions. What works at McDonald's won't work at Starbucks (and vice versa). Although both support wireless charging, they support different models. http://www.androidauthority.com/qi-a4wp-wireless-charging-st...
What use is a wireless payment service going to be if 90% of phones can't use it? When there is a competing standard?
Do Amex do a debit card? In Europe (certainly in the UK) debit cards are in much wider use than credit cards and Visa and Mastercard debit cards are given with almost every bank account.
I'd still trade the charge card for their Costco version.
It should be noted that they also offer regular credit cards, in addition to the charge card, and these do not require payment in full at the end of the bill cycle.
Edit: ignore me, I see somebody else has already mentioned this further down...
Almost all of my monthly spending is on my American Express.
However, you have to setup the American Express account separately, which probably has a lot to do with why many mom and pop type restaurants don't take it. But now that a lot of new restaurants seem to be using processors like Square, this is a complete non-issue.
I shop at farmers markets quite a bit, and a lot of the merchants there are using Square, and it is awesome =)
The news site The Information previously reported that Visa had also agreed to work with Apple.
If Apple sings some kind of exclusive deal for iPhone payments with the credit card companies I expect that half of Europe will start accepting credit cards because people willing to pay for a 600 euro phone are an interesting market segment.
And for groceries in Amsterdam for example you're going to be searching for quite some time for a supermarket that accepts credit cards. They only accept debit, which is what 99% of the population has as their primary card. Of course everybody has a credit card as well, but that's mostly used for online shopping and things like restaurants, not supermarkets.
So totally different from the US where any supermarket accepts credit-cards.
On the other hand, when I see an American tourist trying to pay with a Diners Club, I feel sorry for them.
American Express is a bad choice for many parts of Europe because companies are use to very low processing fees, and AMEX (and Diners Club) are very expensive credit card to process.
Part of the point of AMEX is that everyone is insured against scammers that bit more, hence the higher price/charges, however, in Europe where we have C+P nobody really wants AMEX - their business case just is not heard.
Chip and Pin buys American consumers fuck-all; it is merchants and CC companies that benefit.
European consumers seem to want American consumers to have chip and pin more than American consumers want it for themselves. It is truly bizarre. Are you guys getting a "refer your friends" commission or something?