KFC officially launches Apple Pay at US restaurants

AppleInsider

Fried chicken chain KFC on Wednesday announced that it has finally begun supporting Apple Pay, something originally teased by Apple in October 2015.

The option is now available at "some" U.S. locations, and should eventually reach all of them by the end of the summer, KFC said. Like some other restaurants, people will be able to use Apple Pay both at the counter and in drivethroughs.

The rollout is part of a broader adoption of mobile payments at KFC, as the restaurant is now also accepting Android Pay and Samsung Pay.

While Apple Pay has had rapid adoption by U.S. banks, merchant support has lagged behind. Indeed two other merchant partners announced at the same time as KFC -- Chili's and Starbucks -- are still without compatibility, even though the latter has long had close business ties with Apple.

One of the biggest obstacles is that payment terminals must support the NFC chips found in iPhones and the Apple Watch. Upgrading terminals nationwide is an expensive proposition, although government-mandated security improvements have helped spur changeovers.

Earlier today Apple Pay came to three more Canadian banks, namely TD, Scotiabank, and the Bank of Montreal.

supadav03

Nice! Not the biggest KFC fan but I love when new places accept Apple Pay. Hopefully the other Yum brands, like Taco Bell & Pizza Hut, begin to accept it as well.

applesauce007

Cool!  Go KFC.  
I will go test it out soon.  Original recipe.
Got to get some fish oil at Walgreens first.  LOL

baz1536

Wow.... The US gets Apple Pay in 2014 and KFC get it in 2016.

We get Apple Pay (UK) in 2015 and KFC is active the day it happens, gotta love contactless!!

thrang

They need Starbucks - they are everywhere, used everyday by its customers, and will be a great horizontal expansion of usage

gmgravytrain

KFC?! Oh, that's just great. In my neck of the woods in NYC, they're closing all the KFC joints and replacing them with Checkers. It would appear KFC is on its way out and Checkers will be the new kid on the block. Apple had better get ApplePay for Checkers. Checkers aggressive strategy is to grow from 800 to 3,000 stores. I don't know if that's feasible but the greed is definitely in place. Where I live those franchises are springing up like weeds and they seem to be doing a lot of drive-in business.

dasanman69

gmgravytrain said:

KFC?! Oh, that's just great. In my neck of the woods in NYC, they're closing all the KFC joints and replacing them with Checkers. It would appear KFC is on its way out and Checkers will be the new kid on the block. Apple had better get ApplePay for Checkers. Checkers aggressive strategy is to grow from 800 to 3,000 stores. I don't know if that's feasible but the greed is definitely in place. Where I live those franchises are springing up like weeds and they seem to be doing a lot of drive-in business.

All the KFCs in NYC are grossly mismanaged. 

eightzero

Great! But...eww...

visualseed

Why do we even need these announcements? Every retailer should support NFC type payments. There really just needs rot be a "Shame" List of those that don't support it or deliberately block a particular flavor like Apple Pay.

cali

Eddy Cue's deal for sure.

seriously what's holding these dinosaurs back?

ireland

Now we can all become fat quite easily.

crowley

You know you've made it when... wait, KFC?  Vomit.

feaco

What I do not understand is why has KFC had the apple pay logo on their doors for months. I have tried 6 or more times to use apple pay at KFC and my card is declined every time. Oh well.

sirlance99

thrang said:

They need Starbucks - they are everywhere, used everyday by its customers, and will be a great horizontal expansion of usage

Starbucks already has a extremely successful app to pay for drinks and stuff. Why would Starbucks want to lose all that revenue? 

visualseed

sirlance99 said:

thrang said:

They need Starbucks - they are everywhere, used everyday by its customers, and will be a great horizontal expansion of usage

Starbucks already has a extremely successful app to pay for drinks and stuff. Why would Starbucks want to lose all that revenue? 

I thought Starbucks already supported ApplePay since last fall.

caccamucca

Don't eat at KFC so will not be using Apple Pay there. I want to see Apple Pay at Home Depot and Lowe's, too. I spend tons of money there.

franco borgo

I have been using  Apple Pay in Canada via american express since the beginning and more recently via All major bank. My experience so far, everywhere i see the PayPass logo, ApplePay worked (and employee are real surprise to see it work). There was one place it did not work McDonald, where, sadly, there was the only place I ever saw with a sign saying ApplePay Accepted here      :-)

thrang

sirlance99 said:

thrang said:

They need Starbucks - they are everywhere, used everyday by its customers, and will be a great horizontal expansion of usage

Starbucks already has a extremely successful app to pay for drinks and stuff. Why would Starbucks want to lose all that revenue? 

Jennifer Bailey at Apple noted last year that a Starbuck's Apple Pay rollout in US B&M would be coming in 2016...

http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/8/9483425/apple-pay-vp-starbucks-will-soon-accept-apple-pay

Many people won't use individual payment systems, like myself. I don't like the idea of my static credit card numbers dispersed like demon seed everywhere, as this creates more opportunities to get hacked via a merchant's poor security. Starbucks I'm sure recognizes they need to give users a choice, and they should.

edited June 2016

baconstang

gmgravytrain said:

KFC?! Oh, that's just great. In my neck of the woods in NYC, they're closing all the KFC joints and replacing them with Checkers. It would appear KFC is on its way out and Checkers will be the new kid on the block. Apple had better get ApplePay for Checkers. Checkers aggressive strategy is to grow from 800 to 3,000 stores. I don't know if that's feasible but the greed is definitely in place. Where I live those franchises are springing up like weeds and they seem to be doing a lot of drive-in business.

What's Checkers?

applesauce007

baconstang said:

gmgravytrain said:

KFC?! Oh, that's just great. In my neck of the woods in NYC, they're closing all the KFC joints and replacing them with Checkers. It would appear KFC is on its way out and Checkers will be the new kid on the block. Apple had better get ApplePay for Checkers. Checkers aggressive strategy is to grow from 800 to 3,000 stores. I don't know if that's feasible but the greed is definitely in place. Where I live those franchises are springing up like weeds and they seem to be doing a lot of drive-in business.

What's Checkers?

It's a fast food burger restaurant.

tallest skil

thrang said:

They need Starbucks

Wait, they don’t? Starbucks. Starbucks doesn’t use ApplePay. Starbucks which got its own stupid feature within iOS’ Music app (or wherever it was) built into iOS. Starbucks, whose CEO told us at that very keynote they were opening a new store every three seconds (and which livebloggers said felt like the air was sucked out of the room when he said that, probably because it was the most idiotic business practice imaginable), doesn’t have ApplePay yet.

Odd.

baconstang said:

What's Checkers?

It seems to be Rally’s with a different name. Like how Value City is Schottenstein’s but only in Ohio.

edited June 2016