Pointing Fingers in Apple Pay Fraud

Andrew Ross Sorkin, NYT
MARCH 16, 2015

When Apple was planning its Apple Pay electronic payment system last summer for its iPhones, the nation’s banks raced to be included among the first credit card issuers associated with the new technology.

Apple’s news release announcing Apple Pay had gushing quotes from Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, Brian Moynihan of Bank of America and Kenneth Chenault of American Express, along with a list of other companies as launch partners, including Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Capital One.

Marianne Lake, JPMorgan’s chief financial officer, said at the time of the introduction of Apple Pay, “It’s the future, so it’s great.”

Six months later, some of the nation’s banks are privately complaining that Apple Pay may not be so great after all.

But the banks may largely have themselves to blame.

A raft of headlines over the last week about unusually high fraud rates from thieves using stolen credit numbers on Apple Pay has exposed what many of the banks privately acknowledge they have been trying to fix for months.

(More here.)