American Express Pleased with Apple Pay in Canada, as Mobile Payments Increase

American Express was the first credit card to launch support for Apple Pay in Canada, paving the way for our big banks to adopt the mobile wallet last year.

Kenoy Kadakia, director of product and capability development for Amex, spoke with PYMNTS regarding mobile payments in Canada, such as the usage of Apple Pay.

Kadakia said American Express has been “pleased” with initial adoption rates of Apple Pay, while experience gained from the roll out allowed the company to help launch Amex Pay, its mobile wallet for Android customers.

“We had the benefit, as a global organization, to learn from our experience not just in Canada but around the world,” Kadakia explained. “And as a result, the ability of our customers to use the features, no matter where they are or how they are accessing them, and the ease of how they can set them up and get going using them — that’s what’s driving our mobile payments service.”

American Express expects mobile payments to continue to increase in popularity in Canada and globally, as they have already seen a surge in mobile wallet transactions, as more consumers get comfortable with paying with their smartphones.

Security is important to customers, and American Express says it deploys various methods to protect your data. Kadakia says they are “form-agnostic, so it’s the same security no matter how you are accessing the service,” which coupled with internal processing, they can review suspicious activity in real-time.

Recently, The Globe and Mail asked Apple about Apple Pay transactions in Canada. The iPhone maker declined to mention specifics, only to say “tens of millions” of people in 13 countries use the mobile wallet, with transactions increasing by over five times in the last year.

CIBC senior vice-president of innovation, Todd Roberts, told the Globe “The Apple loyalists and the Samsung loyalists were very quick to adopt, and we’ve seen very solid, persistent usage of the payment apps,” adding “We view this technology as a complement,” noting they never expected mobile wallets to replace traditional cards.

Apple Pay is fantastic—we just need wait for all retailers to adopt tap payments, as some smaller stores still do not. As Canadians continue to upgrade their iPhones to Apple Pay supported models (iPhone 6 or newer), that’s when we’ll also see a further uptick in adoption as well.

How often are you using Apple Pay?

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