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by girvo 1590 days ago
Wow really? That’s surprising for some reason. Here in Australia that’s super common, RFID is in every card you can think of.

If I go to the farmers market on the weekend, they all accept cash or tap-to-pay with a Square tap-only reader, and that’s it.
2 comments
2muchcoffeeman 1590 days ago
Payments and mobile service are some of the more weird things about the US given how easily startups or new tech is developed there. There last time I was in the US was years ago. I still had to swipe my card in a few places and getting a new SIM involved me having to talk to someone. By this time in Australia contactless payments were almost everywhere and you just needed to go to a convenience store to get a SIM and activate online.

It looks like they are going through similar weird things with instant bank transfers. In Australia all the major banks just have instant transfers built in. I use the bank app to transfer to friends and they get notified. In the US you Venmo or PayPal or whatever.

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rconti 1590 days ago
Yeah, the US is finally starting to catch up with contactless. Other countries have been strange as well. My understanding is it was popular in Canada for awhile, but then terminals started disappearing?

The first time I was able to use ApplePay (as an American) was on a trip to NZ. In fact, the clerk at the gas station was shocked to see someone pay with their phone, even though this had been possible with Android for some time, and even though contactless itself was old hat there.

As for the SIM thing, that just depends so much on the business model and regulatory environment. Pay as you go is relatively unpopular in the US, and the availability reflects that. But it's not like Italy, where I had to hand over my passport (!) to get a SIM, or Germany, where I had to document where I was "living". I've heard it's even worse in, say, Chile, where you virtually need to be a citizen or permanent resident to get a SIM.

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vineyardmike 1590 days ago
Yea... the Apple Card doesn't have RFID chips.
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Nursie 1590 days ago
Why would it, you have your iPhone, right?
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vineyardmike 1589 days ago
Yea, practically speaking the physical card is just a trinket to get people to sign up for the card.

BUT contact free payment via card and Apple Pay contact free payments are slightly different and I’ve been to POS terminals that had one but not other. But the point was that there exists cards that don’t have nfc capabilities, including the one made by the company at center of article.

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Nursie 1589 days ago
> I’ve been to POS terminals that had one but not other.

They are very, very similar that this surprises me. Apple/Google pay implement the same standards as wireless cards and it should Just Work(TM) everywhere the cards can be accepted. Obviously real life and 'should' don't always marry up.

But it was one of the big drivers of acceptance of the tech in most places - the infrastructure is already there! You probably don't even need to update the firmware on your reader!

> including the one made by the company at center of article.

Sure, but my point is that I believe that's deliberate, because they want you to use the contactless payment capability of your phone. I don't doubt there are other cards out there without the capability, I just think the apple one isn't a great example.

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