CEO Nelms: Don’t Know When but Discover to Participate in Apple Pay (Oct. 23, 2014)
David Nelms, CEO at Discover Financial Services, kept his cards close to the vest about the payments network’s involvement with the recently launched Apple Pay—but Discover’s participation does seem likely, based on his comments during a Q&A with investors on this week’s earnings call. “We certainly do expect to be participating in Apple Pay,” Nelms said, according to a Seeking Alpha transcript. “We don’t know when that will be, but we’ll be actively working to be included over time.” American Express, MasterCard and Visa already have hitched their wagons to the mobile wallet preloaded on the new iPhone 6 handsets.
Nelms added that Discover is excited about the potential of mobile payments despite the slow adoption so far. “It always seemed to take a little longer than you would like, but I think mobile payments [provides the opportunity] to have more going onto our cards, opposed to cash and check.” Mobile payments programs also tend to give consumers more features and functionality when making purchases, “which I think is good for customers and good for our industry,” he added.
See related stories:
