From: wollman@bimajority.org   
      
   In article ,   
   Michael Trew  wrote:   
      
   >I believe that is also related to your region.  I've heard from   
   >west-coast friends that mobile-payments are more common out their way.   
   >In the mid-west (eastern Ohio), I very rarely see such a thing.   
      
   "Mobile payments" use the same EMV ("Europay, Mastercard, Visa"[1])   
   near-field communications technology as tap-to-pay credit cards, which   
   nearly all banks are issuing now.  It's probably possible for a   
   merchant to buy a payment terminal that doesn't support NFC but any   
   new point-of-sale installation is going to include it.   
      
   That doesn't mean that the banks don't put barriers in the way of   
   enabling mobile "wallets" like Apple/google/Samsung Pay.  For example,   
   my credit union contracts out its credit card business to a bank   
   called Elan, and while they're perfectly happy to issue me a   
   contactless credit card, they make it a hassle to enroll that card in   
   Google Pay -- you can't use the on-device enrollment flow, you have to   
   speak to a customer-service representative on the phone and get an   
   authorization code.  Many people presumably just give up at this   
   point.   
      
   -GAWollman   
      
   [1] Europay merged with Mastercard about 20 years ago, but at the time   
   the standard for "chip and pin" payments was being promulgated in   
   Europe, those three companies were the major card networks in Europe,   
   and name has stuck even though the company no longer exists.   
   --   
   Garrett A. Wollman    | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can,   
   wollman@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future.  This is   
   Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together."   
   my employers.         | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)