Apple Pay, the mobile payment system developed by Apple, just recently added a couple more banks to its list of supported financial and business establishments. Last October, when Apple unveiled the official launch date of Apple Pay, the tech giant had announced that more than 500 banks have already signed up for Apple Pay. These banks are supposed to start rolling out Apple Pay during the last quarter of the year 2014 and on to the first few months of 2015. Joining the ranks of banks that now support Apple Pay are Fremont Bank and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Federal Credit Union.
As its name suggest, Fremont Bank is based in Fremont, California, and is no doubt pleased to inform its iPhone-carrying patrons that it is now adding Apple Pay support for its personal debit cards and small business debit cards.
As for the NIH Federal Credit Union, it has now added Apple Pay support for only its personal debit cards for now. However, Apple is quick to add that the bank is currently awaiting support for its personal credit cards and small business credit cards.
Fremont Bank and the NIH Federal Credit Union are the two newest additions to Apple Pay's fold, following the recent additions of L&N Credit Union and UW Credit Union earlier this December.
Apple's full list of supported banks now include:
If you want to know which banks are planning to roll out Apple Pay in the coming weeks and months, you can head on to 9to5Mac, which has conveniently posted a list.
As for the stores and apps that are currently or will be supporting Apple Pay, you can refer to this list.
Even as more banks are supporting Apple Pay, the number of people using Apple's mobile payment system is also expected to increase. This is quite possible considering that we are already entering into the holiday season, which will surely see an increase in all kinds of purchases.
And it certainly doesn't hurt that the percentage of iOS devices that run on iOS 8 is now at 63 percent (up from 60 percent by the end of November). For those not in the know, Apple Pay is one of the many high-profile features of the latest version of the iOS mobile operating system. And as the number of iOS 8 users increase during the holidays, so is the possibility of them using Apple Pay to pay for their holiday purchases.
