The chain has seen mobile NFC payments rise by quite a bit since Apple Pay was rolled out, yet it remains a tiny but growing fraction of its business. Even then, it only says whether it was an NFC transaction - not whether it was Apple Pay or one of the competing NFC-compatible mobile wallets. Instead, it has to dive deeper into its POS system to see if a payment was made via mobile or not. In fact, Cumberland Farms doesn’t immediately know whether a transaction is done via a swipe or Apple Pay. This fee is identical for the store, regardless of whether the transasction is swiped or performed via NFC. On the back end, the store pays a small fee to the credit card company to process the transaction. A number is transferred through the system, the store requests approval of the payment, and it allows the transaction to proceed.
#APPLE PAY GAS STATIONS UPGRADE#
This is consistent with what a MasterCard executive told me a few months ago - that as companies go through normal upgrade cycles on their POS terminals, they’ll be able to add NFC support for minimal cost as terminals will already have support built in.įrom the retailers’ perspective, an Apple Pay transaction is treated like any other swiped credit card transaction.
“The mix has gotten a lot richer toward NFC.” People are trying it out. “That’s part of the smart timing by Apple,” Banks says. “Everything had an NFC reader and basically worked out of the box.”įor Cumberland Farms, this meant that activating NFC support at its in-store cash registers involved minimal cost. “They were up for cycle anyway with EMV coming down the road,” Banks explained, referring to the chip-and-signature standard that will be required starting a year from now. Instead, the company was in the midst of a normal refresh of the credit card swipe stations that are used at cash registers within the store. The chain, which has some 200 stores in Massachusetts alone, wasn’t planning on implementing Apple Pay support specifically. I spoke to Dave Banks, CIO at Cumberland Farms, about how the rollout is going and how Apple Pay works from the retailers perspective. Massachusetts-based convenience store and gas station chain Cumberland Farms has rolled out Apple Pay support to all its 600 stores in the northeast and Florida. The convenience store chain Cumberland Farms talks to TechRepublic about Apple Pay and its future plans. Cumberland Farms embraces Apple Pay, to add in-app pay-at-the-pump
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