White House announces federal cards for veterans, Social Security will support Apple Pay
The White House on Friday revealed that users of federal payment cards, including Social Security and veterans benefit debit cards, will become compatible with Apple Pay.
The announcement was made in connection with President Barack Obama's cybersecurity summit in Silicon Valley, where Apple CEO Tim Cook is set to speak on Friday. The deal, which was revealed to Bloomberg, applies to the government's Direct Express payment network and cards issued through GSA SmartPay.
The support from federal payment cards may be viewed as something of an endorsement of Apple Pay by the U.S. government. The cards are responsible for $26.4 billion worth of transactions every year.
Apple Pay was developed in collaboration with existing credit card companies and banks, meaning that support for the service and its secure tokenization method must come from third party card providers.
Apple has touted the security of its new Apple Pay service, particularly the fact that credit card numbers are never exchanged when authorizing transactions with merchants. Instead, a different number for making payments is generated, in place of a merchant receiving a credit card number, CVV, and expiration date.
Even Cook himself has said he has been surprised with the rapid adoption Apple Pay has seen since its debut last October. The tap-to-pay e-wallet component of Apple Pay is exclusive to the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, though it will also be integrated with the upcoming Apple Watch.
Last month, Cook declared that 2015 will be "the year of Apple Pay." There are about 750 banks and financial institutions participating.
Apple Pay already accounts for 80 percent of contactless transactions at Panera Bread, while upscale grocer Whole Foods saw a 400 percent increase in NFC-based payments since the service launched.
The announcement was made in connection with President Barack Obama's cybersecurity summit in Silicon Valley, where Apple CEO Tim Cook is set to speak on Friday. The deal, which was revealed to Bloomberg, applies to the government's Direct Express payment network and cards issued through GSA SmartPay.
The support from federal payment cards may be viewed as something of an endorsement of Apple Pay by the U.S. government. The cards are responsible for $26.4 billion worth of transactions every year.
Apple Pay was developed in collaboration with existing credit card companies and banks, meaning that support for the service and its secure tokenization method must come from third party card providers.
Apple has touted the security of its new Apple Pay service, particularly the fact that credit card numbers are never exchanged when authorizing transactions with merchants. Instead, a different number for making payments is generated, in place of a merchant receiving a credit card number, CVV, and expiration date.
Even Cook himself has said he has been surprised with the rapid adoption Apple Pay has seen since its debut last October. The tap-to-pay e-wallet component of Apple Pay is exclusive to the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, though it will also be integrated with the upcoming Apple Watch.
Last month, Cook declared that 2015 will be "the year of Apple Pay." There are about 750 banks and financial institutions participating.
Apple Pay already accounts for 80 percent of contactless transactions at Panera Bread, while upscale grocer Whole Foods saw a 400 percent increase in NFC-based payments since the service launched.
Comments
You'll be waiting for a long time, perhaps a couple of years.
Discover's plastic card doesn't even support NFC contactless payment systems.
If you want Apple Pay, sign up with a different credit card issuer and use that where Apple Pay is accepted until Discover offers support. Feel free to use Discover when Apple Pay isn't offered by the merchant, but does take Discover.
Still waiting for Discover...
why your infatuation with Discover?
"why your infatuation with Discover?"
Why the smear campaign????? (just kidding).
Primary card. I do have a MasterCard associated with ApplePay.
So are you just whining?
Apple can't do anything about Discover's lack of a well-adopted NFC contactless payment system.
It is entirely on Discover's shoulders to implement this.
Remember, Apple Pay was designed to work with existing contactless payment technologies. It's Discover's fault that they weren't there on Day One. Discover is left out in the cold because of poor decision making on their part about three or four years ago.
Seems like Apple has built up a good momentum. Perhaps it will be enough to take ?Pay solidly into the majority mind set.
The bug for us is that we use our PayPal debit card almost everywhere. I may be missing an obvious point as to why, but I don't see why they couldn't co-exist amicably.
I'll bet people like that are scratching their collective heads wondering what to do.
I wouldn't put that blame on CVS. They already have all the data they need with their loyalty card that is independent of any payment type. I'd put the blame on CurrentC.
No one's whining and I know the ball is in Discover's court.
Okay, glad to hear you are grounded in reality.
A lot of commenters here aren't, and it was impossible to tell by your original comment whether or not you realized that it's up to Discover to get this done.