There has been a lot said about how good and convenient Apple Pay is, and how secure it, but unfortunately apart from a handful of countries, Apple Pay doesn’t really exist in that many other countries. Even when it does expand, like when it did to Australia, its initial use was limited to just American Express cardholders.The good news is that Apple has acknowledged that their rollout is a bit slow, and has since vowed to work rapidly in order to get the service out to more of their users around the world. Speaking to TechCrunch, Apple’s VP of Apple Pay Jennifer Bailey said that Apple is currently working to rollout the service in more parts of Asia and Europe.
Unfortunately Bailey stopped short of actually announcing which countries they would be expanding into, but so far for Asia and Europe, Apple Pay is currently available in China, Singapore, and there are plans to bring it to Hong Kong and Spain in the near future, but other than that it’s really anyone’s guess where Apple Pay could be headed to next.
Bailey then shared some insight as to what Apple looks for in a market before deciding to expand. “First, we look at the size of the market for Apple products. We also look at credit and debit card penetration, and [existing] contactless payment coverage. [But] when we bring Apple Pay to market even when contactless is low, it will grow — it was 4 percent in the U.S. but is now 20 percent. We also work with our network partners, where we can utilize integration with Amex and Visa, to go to market quickly.”
Filed in . Read more about Apple Pay.