Apple Pay has become the largest digital wallet in Israel: more than 150,000 users

In less than a week: Apple Pay has become the largest digital wallet in Israel, according to credit card companies and banks. Five days after its launch, Apple's service that allows payment via iPhone or Apple Watch at the store checkouts, by attaching the mobile phone to the checkout, has gained momentum that similar services launched for Android phone and watch users can only dream of and arrived at estimates. For more than 150,000 users.
Credit card companies and banks talk about mass joining. Two of the companies estimate that the number of participants in the entire market is over 150,000. In another company, there is talk of 110,000 joiners in the company alone and over 50,000 transactions, with domestic and non-bank credit cards, so that according to estimates in this company, joining the entire market is higher than 200,000 people. Another company claims that about 30% have already made at least one transaction through the service. Another company estimates that 500,000-300,000 have joined the entire market.
One of the big banks is talking about a few tens of thousands joining only from the bank's customers and there it is estimated that 100,000 customers have joined the service in the entire market. For comparison, the number of users of all the digital wallets that exist in the market even before Apple Pay enters Israel is 130-150 thousand.
Yaron Tiktin, VP of Private Customers and Credit at Max, said that "Apple Pay's entry into Israel is a dizzying success, we see uses of tens of thousands of customers from day one and we are sure that the volumes will only increase. Along with the huge demand for mobile payment from Apple holders, we are also seeing a 30% jump in the demand for mobile payment on Android. "This is a great opportunity for customers to examine their credit cards and place the card in the front of their wallet that will give them the most value."
All credit card companies and banks have encouraged joining through special promotions, most of them cashback promotions: a refund for those who pay with Apple Pay on various networks. According to Apple, 85% of credit cards in Israel can be fed into the service, except for a few such as cards associated with Yahav Bank and the Post Bank that will join the service later.
These are wallets such as Hapoalim's Beat, Isracard's anypay and Max, Leumi and International's digital wallets, all of which are intended for Android users only due to Apple's closed garden policy that does not allow external digital wallets to operate in its operating system.
The Apple Pay service was opened for use by Israelis on May 5, so iPhone and Apple Watch users could finally enter a number of credit cards into the wallet app in the ios operating system and began paying via smartphone or smartwatch at checkouts in Israeli businesses and some websites.
This is the first international digital payment service that the market in Israel and Apple users are known for as quick innovation efforts as well as fans of every new feature of Apple. It was therefore expected that they would propel the market forward and make payment via mobile phone a more common sight.
Apple Pay has doubled the number of digital wallet users. Credit companies report that there is also an increase in the use of other digital wallets, following the noise caused by the launch of Apple Pay in Israel. Phone holders with Android operating system have been reminded following the noise caused by the launch that they too can pay via mobile phone. "The buzz around it has also moved a lot of Android users to pay through digital wallets," it was claimed. Thus, there has been a 30% increase in joining and using digital wallets on Android.
The launch of the service last Wednesday did not go completely smoothly: consumers complained about problems with feeding and payment in the Apple Pay payment service on Isracard and ICL credit cards. For example, one user wrote on Isracard's Facebook page: "Today you activated the option to attach Isracard cards to Apple Pay, but it is not possible to attach. Your call center does not understand the cause of the problem and offers to try in a few minutes. The credit card companies claimed that the problem caused by the large number of participants had been resolved.