In reply to ShamusR.

Merchants will invest in EMV/NFC because the banks/MasterCard/Visa mandate so ...

Regardless, Apple Pay only works on the EMV/NFC terminals on which the new EMV cards work also; any inference the new EMV card is not as secure as Apple Pay is nonsense. And what then about the other ~98% of terminals in the U.S. that are apparently still “swipe” only?

Yes there is a problem with credit card fraud in the U.S. The U.S. currently does ~33% of the world’s payment transactions but has ~50% of the world’s credit card fraud; obviously, that fraud is facilitated by the legacy “swipe” cards/terminals, not by the newer EMV/NFC cards/terminals and, of course, that is why EMV is effectively being mandated. It’s just a shame that the U.S. is ten years behind the rest of the world in this respect.

Still, agreeing to forgo approximately one-third (ONE-THIRD!) of the fee (~0.5%) they receive from their very large merchant account operators (who mostly will have the more secure EMV/NFC terminals anyway) for a questionable improvement in security? I don’t think so.

Methinks, that the U.S. banks have been taken to the cleaners by a more professional marketing operation, but I suspect that Apple will have some trouble trying to “sell” the Apple Pay service—for a fee—outside of the "Stone Age" U.S. payments system, where EMV is ubiquitous and NFC virtually so …