Capital One’s next battle cry may be, “What’s in your Apple Pay wallet?” as the major banks fight it out to be the default Apple Pay card in Apple’s new mobile payments system.
“It’s a healthy competition,” JPMorgan Chase marketing chief Kristin Lemkau told the Financial Times. JPMorgan Chase launched Apple Pay-centered marketing campaigns on the same day as the service’s unveiling, and similar campaigns from Apple’s other partner banks quickly followed.
“You want to create an incentive for people to download their card in Apple Pay and use it as their default card,” Lemkau added.
This writer has already begun receiving Apple Pay related emails from my credit card providers, Capital One and Chase are both are included in that virtual pile of promotional messages.
When a user pays for a service or merchandise using Apple Pay, they simply hold their finger on their iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus’s Touch ID sensor near an NFC reader at a merchant’s point of sale terminal, and the transaction is completed using the default card set up in Apple Pay.
Banks want to their card to be that default card, as once you set it, they believe you’ll be unlikely to change it with any amount of regularity.
Although other payment systems, such as Google Wallet, have seen relatively slow rates of adoption, Apple’s new electronic payment system could be the jolt the industry needs.
Although they’ll be giving up a small piece of the action to Apple, banks believe if they can be the default card in your “electronic wallet” they have a good chance of seeing increased transactions come through their virtual doors, leading to an increase in profits.
