Leaked Walgreens memo points to Apple Pay launch on October 18
A leaked internal Walgreens memo obtained by MacRumors suggests that Apple Pay will go live on Saturday, October 18. Apple Pay, of course, represents Apple's foray into the world of mobile payments. The service promises to be extremely secure and rather quick and easy to use. The number of merchants at launch will be relatively small (~220,000), but that figure is likely to mushroom in the coming months. Recall that all merchants who accept credit and debit cards will be incentivized to upgrade their POS machines to more modern models by October 2015.
While a previous report from The Daily Dot, based on information from USAA, floated a launch date of November 7, it's entirely plausible that Apple Pay will launch at different times for varying banks. Indeed, a quick glance at Apple's Apple Pay website shows that USAA is listed as an Apple Pay partner that's "coming soon", as opposed to banks that are already on board like Bank of America, Citi, and Capital One.
With an Apple media event slated to take place next Thursday, we'll likely get an official world on the Apple Pay launch next week.
