Pay app launched for Android, BlackBerry, while Apple users wait

A mobile payment application owned and supported by Canada's three biggest wireless providers was announced Tuesday for Android and BlackBerry phones, while iPhone users are left waiting for Apple Pay to come to Canada. Suretap, a joint venture of Rogers Communications Inc., BCE Inc. and Telus Corp., said that its mobile wallet application would be available to customers of the three companies' main mobile services, as well as Bell's flanker brand Virgin Mobile and Telus' Koodo. It will be available as a download or preloaded app on more than 30 different smartphones made by BlackBerry Ltd. or running on Google Inc.'s Android software, Suretap said in a press release. That leaves out Apple Inc.'s iPhone. Apple Pay was announced last September but has not yet been made available to Canadians. Apple did not respond Tuesday to requests for comment on when Apple Pay would become available in Canada. Suretap president Jeppe Dorff said in an email: "Suretap has had conversations with Apple in terms of getting their support for an open and inclusive ecosystem, but at this stage we believe that Apple is concentrating on their own model, which is based on Apple Pay being the sole application available on iPhones." Suretap said features of the app include the ability to view transaction histories and track spending. "Suretap is interesting," Mark Satov, a consumer-market adviser with Toronto-based Satov Consultants Inc., said in an email. "It says to me that the telcos are more worried about being behind than beating each other." On Apple Pay's absence from Canada, Satov said: "Apple may not be as worried about Canada for Apple Pay as they are about other things like Taylor Swift. ... So they may or may not see this as a big miss. "And they may be confident enough to think they can come in when they are ready without any harm. Unless they lose a lot of share to Android because of this in Canada, a delay within reason isn’t the end of the world." Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd. predicted that global use of near-field communications- (NFC)-enabled smartphones for making in-store purchases would rise more than 10-fold globally this year compared to 2014. Duncan Stewart, Deloitte’s director of research for technology in Canada, said Apple Pay's lack of presence in the Canadian market will have little effect on this technology trend over the long term. He noted that Apple Pay isn’t available anywhere yet except the United States, and Canada is expected to be among the first three markets to get it, along with the United Kingdom. "Paying with our phones is something we are all going to be doing by 2025," Stewart said in an email. "By which point, the fact that X beat Y to the market by six months is likely to be seen as fairly unimportant." Stewart said apps from Suretap and Apple are both expected to factor into the gains Deloitte predicted this year for mobile-payment usage, though the overall growth is going to come from "multiple approaches, across multiple devices and in multiple countries." This spring, the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple was negotiating with Canada's largest banks about support for Apple Pay, with an eye on launching it here in November. Suretap on Tuesday said that it has secured a new partnership with the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. Dorff said other Canadian banks are expected to join this winter, noting that Rogers Bank is also working with Suretap. Dorff said 38 different credit cards, from both MasterCard and Visa, are compatible with Suretap, as well as gift cards from 30 different businesses. Suretap's press release said some of the participating retailers and restaurant operators from which gift cards will work include Indigo Books & Music Inc., Cineplex Inc., Cara Operations Ltd. (Swiss Chalet, Milestones and others) and SIR Corp. (Jack Astor's, Far Niente and others). He said debit cards, loyalty cards and coupons will become compatible with Suretap at a later date. — With reporting by Derek Abma at dabma@thewirereport.ca and editing by Shruti Shekar at sshekar@thewirereport.ca

Pay app launched for Android, BlackBerry, while Apple users wait

Broadcast | June 23, 2015

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