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Apple Pay coming to Canada tomorrow for American Express cards

According to the iPhone in Canada blog, American Express representatives have confirmed that eligible American Express bank cards will be able to use Apple Pay from tomorrow in the country, Tuesday November 17th. Apple announced on its last earnings call that American Express would lead the expansion of Apple Pay beyond the UK and US, with Canada and Australia coming by end of year and Spain, Singapore and Hong Kong to be added in 2016.

The exact launch date for Apple Pay in Australia is still unknown although the company is quickly running out of days to be within the 2015 window.

In Canada, Apple Pay will be supported at a variety of merchants, including Apple Stores, McDonald’s Walmart and more, although reach is limited by the fact customers must have specific American Express cards to use the feature. Apple has not announced when/if other card types will be able to be used with Apple Pay … Still better than most countries which have no Apple Pay presence at all however.

Apple Pay with NFC wireless payments works with iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus and Apple Watch. You can also do in-app Apple Pay on recent iPad models.

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Comments

  1. gerrycurry - 8 years ago

    One year on and this is all we get? Fat lot of good this does! How many of us use American Express cards?

  2. x0011 - 8 years ago

    Very few people in Canada use American Express, and very few retailers accept it. Even Costco who had an exclusive deal with American Express abandoned them earlier this year and switched to an exclusive deal with MasterCard. Walmart doesn’t have NFC equipment so they won’t be able to accept Apple Pay. (That’s assuming all Walmarts use the same systems. My local Walmart just replaced all of their terminals and didn’t add NFC capabilities).

    • My walmart has NFC..so there you go.

    • GayOsiris - 8 years ago

      I was about to say the same thing about Walmart. My local store also recently replaced all of their terminals and none of them are NFC-capable.

      I’m pretty sure they’ll follow the lead of their US stores which are stubbornly refusing to accept Apple Pay, instead choosing to go with a different system (MXC or something like that), which is still in beta, and will likely be a major flop.

  3. appleplaycz - 8 years ago

    An here in Czech republic NFC terminals are everywhere. But no Apple Pay for us :/

  4. Doug Aalseth - 8 years ago

    Don’t have an AmEx card. Don’t know of anyone who has an AmEx card. Don’t go know of anywhere that takes an AmEx card. So essentially this is nothing.

  5. Dil Ribeiro - 8 years ago

    Here in Brazil 95% of all terminals have NFC and yet, no sign of Apple Pay. At least Canada will have something…

  6. As do I! Looking forward to a “test run” tomorrow.

  7. Graham J - 8 years ago

    “Still better than most countries which have no Apple Pay presence at all however.”

    Not if you don’t have an American Express. Which is probably the vast majority of Canadians.

  8. mathieupothier - 8 years ago

    Who has an American Express card? it’s even not accepted at my workplace.

Author

Avatar for Benjamin Mayo Benjamin Mayo

Benjamin develops iOS apps professionally and covers Apple news and rumors for 9to5Mac. Listen to Benjamin, every week, on the Happy Hour podcast. Check out his personal blog. Message Benjamin over email or Twitter.