22 more banks and credit unions now support Apple Pay

Apple announced today that its mobile payment service Apple Pay has added 22 new banks and credit unions to the list of financial institutions that support the service. This comes after 26 new banks and credit unions were added to the rolls on February 7th. Besides the domestic expansion into more financial institutions, the tech giant continues to rollout the payment service to more countries. In the beginning of the month, Apple CEO Tim Cook said during a conference call that Brazil will be getting Apple Pay sometime in 2018.

Half of the retail stores in the U.S. now support Apple Pay, according to Apple Pay Vice President Jennifer Bailey. But that figure is well below the percentage of retailers who can use rival Samsung Pay. The latter requires that retailer POS stations be equipped with NFC, as does Apple Pay. But Samsung also uses Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST), which allows any retailer who swipes a credit card at checkout to accept Samsung's mobile payment service.

The 22 new banks now working with Apple Pay include:

• Bayer Heritage Federal Credit Union
• Central Sunbelt Federal Credit Union
• Cornerstone Community Financial Credit Union
• First National Bank in Fairfield
• First National Bank of Muscatine
• First Southwest Bank
• Franklin-Somerset Federal Credit Union
• Gas & Electric Credit Union
• Houston Highway Credit Union
• Lincoln Maine Federal Credit Union
• Linn-Co Federal Credit Union
• MED5 Federal Credit Union
• On Tap Credit Union
• Pennsville National Bank
• Salisbury Bank and Trust
• School Systems FCU
• Shelby Savings Bank
• Shoreline Credit Union
• Taunton Federal Credit Union
• The Colorado Bank & Trust Company of La Junta
• Triad Bank
• UNO FCU

Apple keeps .15% of the value of each credit card transaction that uses Apple Pay; therefore, as more banks and credit unions support the service, more money gets added to Apple's coffers.

source: Apple