A un anno dal lancio, Graham Spencer fa il punto della situazione di Apple Pay. Pur essendo un tassello fondamentale di Apple Watch, dopo 12 mesi Apple Pay è disponibile in un numero incospicuo di Paesi.

Secondo Graham, la ragione del lento rilascio risiede in un problema nell’accordo fra le banche ed Apple:

In the US, Apple had little trouble getting support from banks but faced the problem of limited support by retailers for contactless payments. In the UK, the problem was reversed – getting banks to support Apple Pay was problematic, but retailers already had the infrastructure to support it. The reason retailers already had the infrastructure for Apple Pay was because Apple Pay uses the same technology as contactless credit and debit cards – which were already popular with over 69 million in circulation (the UK population was ~64 million in 2013). In fact, in the six months prior to Apple Pay, Britons spent £2.5 billion ($3.84 billion) using contactless cards.

A likely sticking point of negotiations between UK banks and Apple would have been the fee that Apple receives when a customer uses Apple Pay.

Per ogni $100 spesi, Apple guadagna circa 15 centesimi in America. Questi 15 centesimi provengono dall’interchange fee che la banca riceve ad ogni transazione, circa $1 ogni $100 spesi — l’1% o 3% del totale. In Europa però questa percentuale è minore, 0.2% per bancomat e 0.3% per carte di credito. A queste percentuali, lo 0.15% che Apple richiede non è sostenibile — e ciò potrebbe in parte spiegare la difficoltà che Apple sta avendo nello stringere accordi con banche europee.