“We believe it is critical to be on the forefront of seamless and innovative payment solutions for our Card Members and we are pleased to be able to deliver on that with Apple Pay”, Tony Prentice, the vice president of Mobile Products and Payments at American Express, said in a statement. The mobile wallet system will be coming to the two countries this year. So before the end of the year Canadian and Australian users that have American Express cards will also be able to use Apple Pay.
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Security and privacy is at the core of American Express and Apple Pay. Instead, a unique “Device Account Number” is assigned, encrypted and securely stored in the so-called Secure Element on their Apple device. This past July, the service was extended to the United Kingdom, and now it will expand its availability to Australia and Canada.
Apple Pay naturally launched first in the USA and it was only a few months ago before it broke ground in the UK.
Hong Kong remains behind other markets, especially mainland China, in adopting mobile payment services.
Apple Pay will have a meaningful role, but hardly a transformational one in Canada, Rob Sedran, a CIBC World Markets bank analyst, wrote in an October. 21 note. Plenty of merchants are also wary of making new investments in contactless, point-of-sale readers. These might be more useful in those countries were mobile payment systems, and hence NFC-based terminals might even be rarer. Users simply tap their smartphones on the PayPass point-of-sale readers at the stores. Payment for online purchases are capped at HK$10,000 (US$1,289) per transaction.
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Apple Pay may not have registered the growth Apple hoped for, but it is preferred over Android Pay and Pay Pal by a great section of users.
