McDonald's CIO says decision to support Apple Pay was "not difficult"
With Apple Pay set to go operational across 220,000 merchant locations today, McDonald's CIO Deborah Hall-Lefevre recently explained why the ubiquitous fast food chain was so willing to be an Apple Pay partner at launch.
In a recent interview with CIO, Hall-Lefevre articulated that because thousands of McDonald's locations already have NFC enabled POS terminals, supporting Apple Pay didn't involve any upgrade costs. Further, Hall-Lefevre relayed that McDonald's took a close look at the security mechanisms governing Apple Pay and came away impressed.
McDonald's tested Apple Pay at its Point of Sale (PoS) lab in Oak Brook, Ill., and the results earned a green light. "We've done full end-to-end testing that included folks from McDonald's and Apple," Hall-Lefevre says. "We've closed the loop and feel very confident."
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McDonald's is so confident in Apple's security that it is not using any safeguards beyond those provided by Apple and the rest of the financial payments network. "Apple Pay transactions will be handled like any other cashless transaction," Hall-Lefevre says.
As a result, Hall-Lefevre said that getting the higher-ups at McDonald's to throw their support behind Apple Pay was "not difficult."
Following the release of iOS 8.1, iPhone 6 toting McDonald's customers will be able to use Apple Pay in-store and at drive-through locations as well, the latter being accomplished by what can only be referred to as a POS machine on a stick.
