Apple Pay Users Encountering Issues At Checkout: Survey

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Apple’s iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are still encountering issues with Apple Pay despite claims by the CEO Tim Cook that the service has made the most amazing start. A survey by Phoenix Marketing International found that two-thirds of users are encountering problems at the at the checkout counter, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Cost a hurdle for retailers

The survey gathered information on 3,000 users and found that 66% of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus owners have subscribed to the service so far. Of the total users encountering the issue, 48% said processing a transaction is cumbersome, while 42% found the cashier was not trained with the technology. Also there were users who found that the transaction they did with Apple Pay was incorrect or repeated. Separately, a Citi Research survey unearthed similar issues.

Lack of merchant support was the outcome of the cost of updating point-of-sale terminals to models that can support NFC chips similar to the one used in the iPhone. Though U.S. retailers were required to upgrade those terminals to be compatible with the EMV chip technology by October, only a third of them had switched by the end of 2014, and according to Bloomberg, only half of them are expected to convert by the end of 2015.

Samsung, Google working on Apple Pay rival

Arch rival Samsung unveiled its own mobile transaction system, Samsung Pay, which will be available by the third quarter in the United States and South Korea. The technology will be installed at checkout terminals that use older, magnetic-stripe technology as well as NFC. Google also has a mobile wallet and is looking forward to expanding the business. The search giant is also in the process of working on a new service called Android Pay.

Apple Pay runs via short-range wireless signals known as Near Field Communication (NFC), which essentially turns an iPhone 6 or 6 Plus into a digital wallet. Some of the biggest banks and credit cards are using Apple Pay to ramp up U.S. adoption of mobile payments and control their transactions. At present, around 2,500 banks in the United States and around 700,000 locations accept the card, according to Apple CEO Tim Cook.

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