[derefr]

Canadian? I'm betting this is a terminology collision—US debit cards use credit-card protocols to talk to banks, while Canadian debit cards ("ATM cards" or "client cards") use their own protocols for POS transactions, which Apple doesn't even bother supporting.

Instead, to support Canadian debit cards directly, Apple would seem to be using the Canadian banks' web payments infrastructure (Interac EasyWeb)—which is effectively a SAML auth flow using your card number + PIN as credentials.

Before this mechanism was introduced, Apple did first support Canadian "Visa debit" cards, though, so earlier Canadian users of the system—who have their phone pointed at a Visa debit card number they have, instead of their debit client-card number directly—might be confused by the assertion that Canadian debit card use on Apple Pay requires a PIN. It doesn't, for them.

[TomSawyer]

Nope -- American.