Apple Pay By The Numbers

The mobile wallet wars make strange bedfellows. This week, CurrentC stayed on the defensive while Google could be heard singing Apple’s praises as the rising Apple Pay NFC tide has lifted all boats (albeit very, very slightly).

In other news, Burger King decided to jump on the mobile payments bandwagon….with PayPal. And Jimmy Kimmel did an Apple Pay bit- marking the longest stretch of time the payments ecosystem has been talked about on late nite television in history.  Ready to sound like you spent all week studying?  Apple Pay by the numbers is your cheat sheet. ​

450K |  The Number Of Online Merchants That Will Have Apple Pay Brought To Them By CyberSource/ Authorize.Net

Visa’s subsidiaries CyberSource and Authorize.Net have anounced they will support Apple Pay along with Visa Checkout and PayPal as part of a single connection for merchants to streamline online commerce. The new single-connection feature, “online merchants can accept the latest digital payment services.” It also supports tokenization through the Visa Token Service, and the CyberSource offering includes fraud models specially tuned for mobile transactions to help merchants mitigate the risk of mobile payment fraud.

410 K |  The Number Of YouTube Videos Found By Searching “Apple Pay”

Still dreadfully confused about how to use Apple Pay? Don’t want to admit to others that this is the case? The internet has literally over 100,000 Apple Pay Demos available for preview, in languages that include English, Spanish, Chinese and Sweedish.

Need cheering up?  This is the funniest one

13K |  The Number Of Burger King Locations Where Consumers Can Have It Their Way, And Pay with PayPal

Don’t have an iPhone 6?  Need fast food?  Help is on the way.  PayPal announced Monday (Nov. 3) a mobile app deal with Burger King. The payment service is expected to rollout early next year to more 13,000 Burger Kings and will be compatible on both iOS and Android devices via the Burger King app.

“With the Burger King App, guests can receive exclusive offers and discounts at BK restaurants, find their closest BK restaurant, and browse the menu and nutritional information,” said PayPal Chief Product Officer Hill Ferguson. “

133-226 |  The Number Of Days Consumers Will Have to Wait For Their Very Own Apple Watch

The launch for the Apple Pay-accepting Apple Watch will not happen until at least March 20, according to comments made by Apple Senior Vice President of Retail and Online Stores Angela Ahrendts.  This may or may not be a push back of Apple’s original vague launch date of “early 2015: Ahrendts’ noted in a video message for retail employees “we’ve got a new watch launch coming in the Spring.”

Spring in 2015 starts on Fri., March 20, and ends on Sat., June 20. Whether than reflects a delay from “early 2015″ depends on how one defines “early 2015.”

95 | The Percentage Of The Cards In Their Portfolio Issuers Must Make Available For Apple Pay

When Apple insists on its cut from Apple Pay transactions, it’s not kidding.  Beyond the 0.15 percent of the transaction amount that has been widely reported, Apple is also getting a half-penny for every debit transaction. Issuers must make available for Apple Pay at least 95 percent of the cards in their portfolios that are branded by a participating network, such as Visa or MasterCard.

These fees paid to Apple are in addition to those now assessed by the networks to tokenize cards. For instance, MasterCard is charging 50 cents to provision each token, and Visa is reportedly charging issuers 7 cents and 2 cents if a token is declined.

Apple’s contract is said to detail the flow of monies too which is interesting. “Issuers pay the card network, which will then pass the fees on to Apple, according to the contract terms. Issuers will receive an invoice each month from the network and will have 15 business days to pay it.”

50 |  The Number Of CurrentC Merchants Who Can’t Take Apple Pay (But Just For A Little Bit Longer)

Officials with the not-yet-launched CurrentC mobile payment app from MCX have started trying to defend their app from comparisons with Apple Pay, saying that many of the unkind comments about CurrentC are not true.  

CurrentC staff were particularly defensive about the exclusivity agreement, which they continue to insist is higly temporary and only designed to give the fledgling mobile wallet “time to breathe.

20 |  The Number Of U.S. Cities Apple Pay Will Reach With Open Table In 2015

Apple can now add a new wonder to the collection brought to consumers by the introduction of the iPhone 6 and Apple Pay – iOS is now ready to feed customers. Not literally (though that could be in development),  but instead by enabling payment at restaurants booked through the popular Open Table app.

“The integration with Apple Pay makes the OpenTable mobile payment experience even more intuitive and seamless,” says Matt Roberts, CEO of OpenTable. “With Apple Pay, OpenTable diners can skip the step of adding a card to their profile and simply settle their check with a single touch using iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus.”

Open Table is currently available in New York, L.A. and Washington D.C., but plans to be in 20 U.S, cities by the end of 2015.

1 |  The Number Of Months Google Says It Took Apple Pay To Double Google Wallet’s In Store Transactions

Apple Pay is driving NFC volume up and pulling Apple’s NFC rivals along with it, according to preliminary reports.  In a speech this week, a Walgreens executive–Deepika Pandey, group vice president, digital marketing & customer experience—said that her chain has seen in-store NFC payments double after accepting Apple Pay.  Apple Pay competitor, Google Wallet, which has been struggling for years, is also seeing a boost. A Google source says “Weekly transactions have increased by 50 percent, and in the recent couple of months, new users have nearly doubled compared to the previous month.”

MPD CEO Karen Webster did note that this news should be taken with an appropriate grain of salt, given the overall miniscule number of NFC transactions today.  “If there are only four transactions a week, then an increase of 50 percent only gets you to 6.”