Still Apple Pay seems to be americo-centric with only supporting credit cards. In Europe SEPA wire transfers and direct debit is cheaper, safer and has a wider use-case (you can send money to any bank account).
The fact that there may be a better option than ApplePay for 517 million people in Europe... that doesn't on it's own seem like great evidence that ApplePay is "america-centric." The vast majority of the world does not live in Europe's SEPA area.
Disregarding the kind of payment, it does currently rely on NFC in terminals to work, and there are a lot of developed countries, e.g. South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, that don't have that technology or don't support it. For example, South Korea does have the infrastructure for Apple Pay in many places (e.g. NFC enabled terminals) but their infrastructure isn't set up for it. Even beyond this, there's a lot of countries that support contactless card payment unlike the US, which makes using Apple Pay even less useful and limits its acceptance.
From what I've read the vast majority of Apple Pay payments are done in the US, so it's not unfair to call it "America-centric".
> Still Apple Pay seems to be americo-centric with only supporting credit cards
I don't understand - do you pay for everyday goods and services with wire transfers and direct debits? Because that's the use case of Apple Pay isn't it?
I'm not sure how anything could be quicker than a credit card. A normal contactless transaction from me taking my wallet out of my pocket to being done takes about two seconds. Apple Pay is no different except I take my phone out of my pocket instead of my wallet. Maybe Apple Pay by watch could be quicker?
For groceries: 50% cash, 50% debit cards or direct debit – they instantly score you and the content of your shopping cart and use the riskier but free direct debit if they trust you.
But most people have CCs now as well. It's the only sane option besides paypal and quite useful when traveling. I'm pretty sure though that a rather large percentage of CC users pay it within the month and avoid interest.
Direct debit may be free, but they pay me when I use a credit card, with cashback, so it's even better than free. (Of course I know I pay for processing fees in the overall price, but if I'm paying that anyway I should use the credit card).
Yes, debit card payments is who you'd buy everyday goods and services (e.g. the normal grocery shopping) in most of Europe. In Germany many people don't even own a credit card because debit cards fulfill that role already in everyday life.