Apple pay is gearing up to expand outside US borders. iOS fans in Canada may finally have a native mobile payments solution soon as the company is reportedly planning to launch its mobile payment feature Apple Pay in Canada later this year. This is the first market the payment method will be available in outside of the U.S.
Apple Pay will come to Canada this November, according to the Wall Street Journal. The company is reportedly courting six Canadian banks: Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia, Bank of Montreal, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, and National Bank of Canada.
It’s unclear whether Apple has been able to sign agreements with any of these banks yet.
The big sticking points for many of the banks, though, are the fees Apple would take from every transaction, as well as security issues around authenticating cards, which has been a problem for some U.S. banks. If everything pans out, it would make Canada the first territory to get Apple Pay outside of the U.S.
The WSJ notes that Canada’s high iPhone penetration is one reason Apple may be focusing on it. iPhones make up a third of all smartphones in Canada, compared to just 20 percent globally, according to research company Catalyst.
Apple Pay first rolled out to iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in October as a component of iOS 8.1. The app allows users to pay for goods both on mobile and in-store with a few taps and a fingerprint scan. So far the mobile payment service doesn’t seem to be catching on with consumers, however. A report from earlier this year found that only six percent of iPhone 6 and 6 Plus users had ever used Apple Pay.
Aside from consumer adoption, banks in Canada may have other reasons to be hesitant about signing up for Apple Pay. There have been a number of incidents in which fraudsters were able to link stolen credit cards to Apple Pay accounts, creating a big problem for banks. In most cases, if not all, it was a failure on the bank’s part for not having the appropriate infrastructure to verify Apple Pay accounts. Still, it’s a looming issue that banks in Canada will have to deal with if they decide to work with Apple.
