CEO Perspective: Apple Pay Launch Propels Widespread Mobile Payments Adoption

Jason Oxman
October 20, 2014 – Apple Pay launches today, and I set up my new iPhone 6 on Friday afternoon, just in time to enjoy the launch.  I’m excited for Apple Pay not only because Apple has joined ETA as one of our newest member companies – although that is certainly great news.  I’m excited because Apple has embraced the payments ecosystem that ETA members have worked so hard to build and deploy to the nation’s eight million merchants that accept electronic payments.

Ubiquitous merchant acceptance of payments is the reason consumers prefer to pay electronically – safe, reliable, rewarding and convenient electronic transactions drive $4.9 trillion in consumer spending in the U.S. each year.  With ETA member companies like Apple, Samsung, Google, Amazon, PayPal, Softcard, Verizon, AT&T, Microsoft, Intuit – and so many more of the world’s greatest technology companies – deploying mobile payments technologies, this exciting new product category is poised for massive success.  Consumers in this country carry 1.2 billion debit and credit cards and 330 million mobile phones – combining those two couldn’t make any more perfect sense.

Will Apple Pay and other great mobile payments products entirely replace the plastic credit card?  Some day, yes – although not this year or even next.  The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are already in the hands of 10 million consumers and 220,000 retailers –  including Target, McDonalds and Walgreens –  support Apple Pay.  For all the commentators who say that mobile payments are small and won’t play a significant role in U.S. consumers’ lives, I say this:  have you used your smartphone today for something other than making a voice phone call?  Because just a few years ago, people thought that was a crazy idea too.  And as ETA members work with their merchant customers to upgrade our nation’s payments infrastructure to EMV and NFC capabilities, I can’t wait to see the innovation that’s next.
[spacer height=3] [divide] [spacer height=3] Jason Oxman is the CEO of the Electronic Transactions Association.