Apple Pay Opens Its Heart (And Wallet) To Charitable Donations

Apple announced that it is expanding Apple Pay to allow nonprofit organizations and charities to accept donations via the mobile payments service and Apple Pay on the Web. The change takes effect immediately in the U.S.

    Get the Full Story

    Complete the form to unlock this article and enjoy unlimited free access to all PYMNTS content — no additional logins required.

    yesSubscribe to our daily newsletter, PYMNTS Today.

    By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions.

    Previously, charitable donations were barred on Apple Pay due to a lack of safeguards and the ability to validate the legitimacy of charities accepting donations. Charities can now embed donate buttons linked to users’ Apple Pay in their apps. Consumers will be able to use Touch ID to validate their contributions.

    We’d love to be your preferred source for news.

    Please add us to your preferred sources list so our news, data and interviews show up in your feed. Thanks!

    The addition comes just in time for the holidays, a time when, PayPal estimates, 62 percent of consumers will make a charitable donation. PayPal also predicts a 45 percent uptick in “Giving Tuesday” donations this year. And speaking of PayPal, Apple’s addition of charity and nonprofit donations allows it to start directly competing with the digital wallet giant in the charitable donations department. PayPal currently has close to 500,000 charities using the platform to accept donations.

    Nineteen nonprofits are already working with Apple Pay, including the American Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, UNICEF and others.

    Apple recently said that transactions on its contactless payments service were up 500 percent in Q3 and that it had completed more transactions in September of this year than in all of 2015.

    Apple Pay is also finally scheduled to open to almost 4 million Australian users, despite boycott threats from four major Australian banks, following a partnership with payments company Cuscal. Happy holidays indeed.

    Advertisement: Scroll to Continue