Apple Pay Progress Includes Increased Usage At Vending Machines Tim Cook

SAN FRANCISCO -- Apple Inc. chief executive Tim Cook talked about Apple Pay's increasing usage at vending machines during his keynote address at the computer giant's product event here on Mar. 9. Cook mentioned that Apple Pay, an NFC-based app, is now used at 40,000 Coke-branded vending machines and that the beverage giant plans to raise that number to 100,000 this year.

Check out Cook's presentation here.

Overall, Apple Pay is generating big new numbers among banks and retailers that support it. In the past three months, Cook reported, Apple went from partnering with 500 banks to 2,500, and the number of merchants now accepting it almost tripled, reaching nearly 700,000 locations in the U.S.

While the use of Apple Pay at Coke machines makes for catchy headlines, any independent vending or amusement operator can accept the mobile payment solution at their machines. Byndl, Cantaloupe Systems, Crane Merchandising Systems, USA Technologies and VendScreen are among the cashless payment providers that support it.

In related news, as the number of Apple Pay usage points increases, so have the occurrences of fraud. The Wall Street Journal reported on Apple Pay fraud cases at least three times in the past week. However, the reported fraud issues are not because of a breach of Apple Pay's security, i.e., hacking into existing user accounts. Rather, Apple Pay fraud mostly resulted from account takeovers in which cybercriminals used stolen credit card numbers to set up iTunes accounts, which in turn were used to set up new Apple Pay accounts.