Eddy Cue on Apple Pay: "We have a lot of work to do, but it should be huge"
With Apple Pay launching today, Apple's Eddy Cue spoke briefly to the Wall Street Journal about some of the challenges faced by Apple's new mobile payments platform. For instance, while the 220,000 merchant locations that will accept Apple Pay at launch certainly sounds impressive, that figure is just a small drop in the bucket relative to the 9 million merchant locations sprinkled throughout the U.S.
"We're trying to do something that I think is a game changer and it requires a lot of people to play together," Cue told the Journal. "There's a lot to do here and we have a lot of work to do, but it should be huge."
Another potential speed bump for Apple Pay is that the platform currently doesn't support proprietary cards that big name retailers like Macy's like to issue customers.
Still, corporate credit cards or prepaid cards aren't accepted yet. Neither are retailers' proprietary credit cards, so shoppers can't use their Macy's or Bloomingdale's cards. That means customers might miss out on discounts tied to the store cards, while merchants relinquish revenue they receive from issuing banks.
Notably, a Macy's spokesman told the Journal that support for such cards will be coming soon.
On a related note, Businessweek also has a piece up today relaying why some nationwide retailers aren't fully jumping on the Apple Pay bandwagon just yet. While some retailers are keen on loyalty programs not supported by the anonymous nature of Apple Pay, others -- like Starbucks -- aren't exactly racing to upgrade their POS machines with NFC functionality.
It'll be interesting to see how Apple Pay at retail locations ultimately resonates with consumers. Interestingly enough, Cue told the WSJ that he expects Apple Pay, at least initially, to be more widely used via mobile apps than at retail storefronts.
