You’re more than welcome. I know a lot more about this than I want to omit but since been all in on Apple Pay I’ve been getting more of an interest in the payments Industry.
However I forgot to mention the usual disclaimer.
Apple Pay works anywhere that Contactless Payments are excepted as long as they support your card scheme Visa or MasterCard etc. etc. there should be no problem.
On the side of merchant support Apple Pay is nothing special and is supported worldwide if the merchant supports Contactless Payments and the card scheme that you’re using.
Merchant support of Contactless Payments in Canada is pretty high from my understanding however not as high is here.
I believe merchant support is about 73% in Canada last time I looked Australia’s in the high 95-99%.
A problem you may have is when spending more than $100 CAD.
Like here in Australia, Canada also has a limit on Contactless Payments however most merchants do not allow it to go over $100 CAD in Canada and would require that you insert the card and enter a PIN, Unlike here where if the transaction goes over $100 and there is no support for CDCVM you’ll get asked to enter your PIN.
Also support for Consumer Device Cardholder Verification Method (CDCVM) can allow for higher transactions. However support in Canada for CDCVM from my understanding is very low.
With the majority of banks in Canada that support Apple Pay do not allow CDCVM on there cards yet.
This doesn’t affect us however because it relies on our banks because we will be using an Australian issued card ANZ, Macquarie and ING and others have support for CDCVM on their card products.
The big problem will be merchant support of CDCVM in Canada because the banks don’t have it turned on not many merchants have it turned on as well. Seems to be limited to very large retailers and fast food/chain restaurants.
However I believe I’ve heard Rene Ritchie say several times the sorts of places that you would spend more than $100 CAD in a single transaction are used to this and will often split the transaction up so to accommodate the use of contactless payments.
As most of you probably are aware I don’t have any physical cards anymore, normally when I’m going overseas I do re-order a physical card as a back up and when I go to Canada this will be no different.
However to circle back to this question.
I don’t envision much of an issue for most day-to-day transactions while I’m in Canada $1 AUD is currently exchanging at $0.99 CAD I wouldn’t think you would hit the $100 CAD limit to often with normal transactions and when I do in counter and issue I’ll have my physical card.