MasterCard Roadmap Leak: Canadian Apple Pay Support Coming

According to an internal document obtained by MacRumors, MasterCard is looking to build out Apple Pay support in Canada, Brazil, and parts of Asia in 2016. As the accuracy of the document is unknown, the publication is reporting the supposed expansion as speculation.

Apple Pay is already available in the Canadian market, but MasterCard integration could foreshadow support from large card-issuing financial institutions which is currently missing in the limited American Express partnership.

Users in Canada can currently link first-party AmEx cards with their Apple Pay account, but not those co-branded cards like those offered through big banks like BMO, CIBC, RBC, Scotiabank, and TD.

The report may also confirm current rumours that suggest CIBC may be one of the first Canadian banks to support Apple Pay.

Beyond Canada, MasterCard is reportedly eyeing rollouts in Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore, all markets where touchless payment systems are well entrenched. In addition, the credit card company is looking to debut Apple Pay in Brazil, a booming marketplace for Apple products.

Apple last year announced Apple Pay would launch in in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Spain sometime in 2016, but failed to disclose details on the matter. It is possible that the company was referring to the reported MasterCard partnership.