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Last week, cPort CU became the first Maine CU to go live on ApplePay. According to Synergent, there are currently 15 Maine CUs in various stages of the process to go live on ApplePay.
Gene Ardito, President/CEO of cPort CU, called the implementation of ApplePay an important part of strengthening the perception of credit union's having the leading technology. "With Synergent's help, we are happy to now offer Apple Pay to our members. Whether or not there is significant use of this innovative product is somewhat irrelevant. It is more important that our members and the community know that a small credit union like ours can offer sophisticated technology like Apple Pay. In many ways, credit unions like ours have more sophisticated technology than our larger bank competitors."
Your League's President John Murphy agreed, adding, "Through our statewide awareness campaign and ongoing relationships with media that provide an opportunity to highlight credit unions' knowledge and expertise, the message about the level of technology being not only equal to but, in many cases, higher than other financial institutions is being reinforced at every opportunity."
Rebekah Higgins, VP of Card Services at Synergent, said the process when credit unions in the que for ApplePay implementation go live depends on a number of factors including "whether or not they have submited their paperwork, if there are follow-up questions, whether Apple or VISA have approved their paperwork, and if they are waiting for their credit card processor to implement tokenization on their credit card bins, etc. Visa has a '95% rule' for tokenization in that if they are applying for tokenization on their debit card bin and they have a credit card bin that is more than 5% of their overall card base then they are required to 'tokenize' both bins. Visa will not approve one bin without having the other bin submitted and ready for approval, as well."
Higgins said she anticipates the frequency of credit unions waiting to go 'live' on ApplePay to pick up in the coming weeks and months, and said having the first one 'live' is a big accomplishment.
In Maine, there are currently four banks offering ApplePay including Camden National, Bank of America, Key and TD. "We anticipate surpassing the banks with the number of institutions offering ApplePay in a short period of time," remarked Murphy.
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