Apple Pay’s Canadian Day

The news that Apple Pay would finally launch in Canada broke last month, following many months of speculation that it would soon do so.

Now, it appears Apple Pay’s day north of the border is here. Multiple media reports indicated that Apple Pay will, in fact, be launching in Canada today (Nov. 17).

Last month, the news surfaced after one of their Canadian partners accidentally jumped the gun and offered the world a peek at what their Apple Pay integration will be like in the northland.

TD Bank’s website briefly offered a link to an Apple Pay page. That link is now gone, and is being explained by TD as mere preparations for when their customers could add cards to Apple’s mobile wallet. The site also briefly noted that Apple Pay transactions would be limited to $100 and “subject to change.”

The news that’s been circulating the Web is that Apple Pay is launching with American Express as its partner tomorrow. This comes more than a year after Apple Pay launched in the U.S. — which has been a slow rollout since.

What’s been holding Apple Pay back in Canada is the same issue it’s been having in other regions of the world: Banks aren’t necessarily on board with Apple Pay because of the fees associated with transactions. Negotiations have reportedly been going on since.

Plus, there’s not necessarily a lot of financial perks motivating them to support the service.

In fact, a report published over the summer from investment bank Cormark Securities suggests that Apple Pay won’t play a role in giving Canadian banks a revenue boost. Meny Grauman, an analyst with Cormark, said Apple Pay will likely only have an “immaterial” impact on earnings.

Even at a 25 percent adoption rate, which is a very tall order, the EPS impact on the large Canadian banks would still be immaterial to overall earnings,” Grauman told Bloomberg.

Grauman addressed investors in a note late last week (July 9). The note addressed the annual per-share earnings impact on the major banks that have said they’ll support Apple Pay. According to the note, the banks — which include Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto-Dominion Bank and four other large lenders — might actually take a hit and fall 5 basis points because of Apple’s transaction fees.