By Robin Sidel
Apple Inc. said it is expanding its Apple Pay mobile-phone
payments service to accept cards from Discover Financial Services
Inc. and certain retail stores, such as department-store chains
Kohl's Corp. and J.C. Penney Co., and warehouse club BJ's Wholesale
Club.
The company also said that it is extending Apple Pay next month
to the U.K., where it will be accepted at more than 250,000
locations, including the London transportation system.
Apple announced the expansion plans at its Worldwide Developers
Conference.
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that Apple would start
accepting the retail store-branded cards, also known as
private-label cards. Those cards, which can only be used at
specific merchants, are popular with consumers because they
typically include special offers and discounts.
The retail cards will tap into a security platform called
tokenization that is being offered by MasterCard Inc. Such cards
typically aren't part of the Visa Inc. or MasterCard networks
because they can't be used outside the specific stores.
Apple launched Apple Pay late last year with cards branded by
Visa, MasterCard and American Express Co. The company said Monday
that more than 1 million locations will be accepting the payment
service as of next month.
Hundreds of financial institutions have signed up for the Apple
Pay system, but it isn't clear how popular the payments service is
with consumers, in part because the company hasn't yet released
revenue figures for it.
Write to Robin Sidel at robin.sidel@wsj.com and Daisuke
Wakabayashi at Daisuke.Wakabayashi@wsj.com
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