Apple Inc. To Roll Out Apple Pay On Monday

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Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) just announced it will officially launch Apply Pay for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus on Monday, October 20th. The company’s chief executive officer Tim Cook announced  500 new banks have already signed up to join the service. This is a significant increase from last month when Cook announced initial partners last month.

Apple Pay partners with many banks

Apple Pay is initially exclusive to the United States. There is no word on when it will roll out to other markets in the near future. The banks joining the roster include Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C), Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC), Capital One Financial Corp. (NYSE:COF), Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM), American Express Company (NYSE:AXP), PNC Financial Services Group Inc (NYSE:PNC), Barclays PLC (ADR) (NYSE:BCS) (LON:BARC), Navy Federal Union, U.S. Bancorp (NYSE:USB), and USAA. The new service will support cards from American Express, Visa, and MasterCard. Retailers supporting the new service include Target, Starbucks, OpenTable, MLB, Uber, Nike, and DIsney among others.

According to Apple, the new NFC payment system will arrive with iOS 8.1 update. Unfortunately, not all banks will launch Apple Pay from the start, so customers will have to wait until banks are ready to launch. USAA will officially launch the program for their customers on November 7th.

Check our live coverage of Apple’s iPad Event

Tim Cook believes Apple Pay is the future

Cook summed it up during today’s event, “It’s easy, it’s secure and yes, it’s a private way to pay for things. We think that it is going to be profound.”

Just last month, Cook claimed Apple Pay would replace the wallet and plastic cards. He elaborated that there is more than 200 million credit and debit card transactions every day. This service simplifies everything by allowing customers to tap their iPhones into payment terminals then tap the fingerprint sensors to make the purchase. The devices and the terminals must have NFC chips to store financial information. This means Apple Pay is limited to iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.

Apple Pay does have one component that is not just limited to the new iPhones. Consumers can now pay for things with a single tap on the Touch ID. This will save time and energy.

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