ApplePay turns 11 yrs old this month, a wallet that has gone from 0 to 84 countries and 11,000 banks. Hard to believe, my blog was the first to break the news of ApplePay in iPhone 6 back in 2014.  Back then I was on the advisory board of Money2020, and asked M2020 co-founder Johnathan Weiner to hold a place in the agenda for Apple Pay. September rolled around and we still had an “empty” slot, I told him to trust me. It worked out well, as Apple finally rolled it out on September 9th 2014.  There was so much innovation in the initial wallet from tokenization, provisioning, credentials in the secure enclave, … and of course the game of chicken Apple played with Issuers on their 15bs (in US, 7bps in EU see story). 

I just installed iOS 26 this morning, so what’s new in iOS 26 w/ ApplePay? 

• Usability. Everything has gotten better with the wallet as central hub for payment, identity, passes/tickets and more. 
• Boarding Passes have the biggest set of enhancements with passes linking to real time flight and gate information, as well as airtags in your luggage, no more need to navigate to “find my” to check your luggage. When you land the wallet will also integrate to local airport maps, with restaurant and club locations.  All the major US carriers will be participating with major international carriers on board too. 
• BNPL becomes a feature of every card in the wallet (w/ bank opt in). Perhaps the change with the biggest FinTech impact is Apple’s approach to enabling a common BNPL CX for every card in the wallet with Citi, HSBC, CaixaBank, Monzo are all leading bank participants, in addition to BNPL providers like Klarna and Affirm. Basically, Apple provides the UI where cards can operate as BNPL providers to pay in 3, 6, 9, 12 mo. Where as Mastercard led service behind “Apple Pay Later” was a complete failure (see blog). Of course banks must first enable installments within their own cards (for example through Visa’s Flex Credential). I love how Apple enables existing Issuers to compete here, enabling cards to operate in a new way both in store and online. 
• Making Cards better. While reward points integration was part of last years effort in Wallet V2 (Citi was lead participant), Apple is working with Discover, Synchrony and US Bank (perhaps in addition to Citi) to allow point conversion into $$ on the phone. Paying with points will no longer require you to visit the Issuers card app (which some Banks won’t like at all).  
• Apple Intelligence – Order Tracking. Assuming you give permission  for apple to look in your email, Apple intelligence will find all emails relating to order status and provide notifications you choose ON YOUR DEVICE (not keeping your email order information in the cloud). A first example of federated/localized intelligence. You can access this feature on the top right “…” under Order tracking 
• Lastly are some really cool features in Apple cash that allow you to split money across a group text. 

Structurally, I see Apple moving to a very “bank friendly” position, working to enable consumers with a common “fantastic” customer experience. US and EU banks continue to push for access to the enclave to store their own credentials to power their own wallets. We all know its just silly to think that a bank/consortium-branded wallet will compete with Apple.  Banks undertake this effort to differentiate.. In this they will succeed.. But not in the way they hope.

I’m surprised more Issuers have not leaned into Apple’s approach. Pay with points and BNPL enablement are key examples of how Apple is seeking enablement vs the competition. As I’ve stated often Apple does NOT want to be a bank, they want to enable great customer experiences. Their problem with 2023’s Wallet 2.0 efforts is that they tried to package the “bundle” of customer experiences as all or nothing. No bank can uptake innovation like that.. Particularly from a force in CX like Apple.

Kudos to the ApplePay team. I can’t help but smile thinking that this team has more continuity and depth in mobile payments than any other company (or bank) globally. Anything payments related takes patience, deep understanding of tech, operating rules, politics and a strategy to change it all. Innovation in networks (see blog) is a hard lift. Apple succeeds in a way no one else can, making payments easy is hard.. Credit is due to the team behind it.