As it stands Apple Pay is only limited to the US as the deal Apple has worked out is only with American financial institutions. We expect that Apple will want to eventually rollout the service to other parts of the world, and while China might be reluctant to let Apple Pay in, over in Europe Visa might have paved the way for Apple’s entrance.Visa Europe has recently announced a new and more secure way for customers to make purchases from retailers using their phone. Instead of transmitting the customer’s entire credit card information during the transaction, a series of random numbers would be used as a token to identify the card and the details. These numbers are generated each time meaning that even if it were to be intercepted, it would be useless in future purchases.
Coincidentally enough this is the same system employed by Apple at the moment with US-based credit card providers, so with Visa Europe introducing a similar system in the region, it could persuade banks and other financial institutions to allow Apple Pay to be used as well. After all if Visa is going to use the same security measure, there wouldn’t be anything wrong with allowing Apple to do so as well, right?
Visa Europe’s Chief Digital Officer Steve Perry declined to comment on whether Apple had agreed to use Visa’s new security measure in Europe, although he was quoted as saying, “Apple and Visa have an agreement around what has happened. I am as excited as anyone, but we have to wait.”