After confirming that its terminals aren’t currently working with Apple Pay, Home Depot has said it plans to fully support Apple’s mobile payments service after its systems have been upgraded.
Shoppers began to voice complaints after the retail giant’s NFC terminals recently stopped accepting Apple Pay transactions, a move that was thought to be similar to when CVS and Rite Aid blocked Apple to join a competing mobile payments service.
That is not the case, as Home Depot told Bloomberg today that over 2,000 of its stores will support Apple Pay officially when its systems are upgraded. U.S. retailers are being pressured by banks to upgrade their terminals to support more secure chip-and-PIN security, and many of them will likely choose to support NFC (Apple Pay’s backbone) as well when they upgrade.
Alex Heath is a journalist who works for Tech Insider. He’s the former co-host of The CultCast. He has been quoted by the likes of the BBC, KRON 4 News, and books like “ICONIC: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation.” He lives in Lexington, Kentucky. If you want to pitch a story, share a tip, or just get in touch, additional contact information is available on his personal site. Follow him on Twitter.
7 responses to “Home Depot flipping switch back on for Apple Pay”
Their loss, of my business.
I’m glad. I was using gwallet at home depot for about 2 years now and before they turned it off i used apple pay when i had the iphone. It was great. Back when they had their debit/credit card breach, i wasn’t affected because i had used tap and pay every time. Once they activate it, i’ll use home depot more than lowe’s since lowes decided to partner with current c and their horrible payment system.
I see your point and appreciate your technology choices. However, I chose Lowes because they have cashiers to check you out. The self-check out at Home Depot only works when you have one or two items. Only recently has it stopped nagging you about placing your items in the bag. Given a choice, I will pay for some one to work rather than bad technology.
Iv’e used the self checkout for 1 item plenty of times. Back when tap and pay worked i would do it all the time to get an emergency redbull or water bottle or just a candy bar. I wonder if it’s something with your specific store. I hope it’s not something they are switching to.
Maybe it’s based on market. In Dallas, self-check is out about 50% or more of all available registers. You will see long lines in the full service ones and few people using the self-check out.
I finally got a “chip” card but not sure where or how to use it. Ergo, I hope retailers get on the Apple Pay / Google Wallet soon.
How about an updated article on CurrentC? I could use a good laugh.
I don’t understand… So Home Depot turned off ApplePay support because not all of their stores are currently capable of supporting it? When do they plan on re-enabling support?
All the retailers have been pretty crummy about communicating ApplePay, NFC and Chip and Pin status to their employees… I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been in a store and been told that the NFC terminal doesn’t work and never has as I’m trying the transaction – and had the transaction go through properly… Or being told by the Home Depot employee this past weekend when my ApplePay transaction failed that NFC has “never worked” even though I had been using it in that very store since November…