CVS and 7-11 Accepting Apple Pay

What it is: CVS and 7-11 now accept Apple Pay.

At one time, a consortium of merchants including Walmart, CVS, BestBuy, and Target tried to create their own digital payment system called CurrentC. The idea was to eliminate credit card fees and keep the money for themselves. The problem with CurrentC was that it required getting consumers to adopt it. That’s why so many companies banded together with the idea that if several big merchants offered it, more people would likely adopt it.

Then Apple introduced Apple Pay, quickly followed by Google Pay and Samsung Pay. Instead of limiting digital payments to merchants, these new payment systems limited digital payments to specific devices. The popularity of the iPhone and Apple Watch helped spur growing acceptance of Apple Pay to the point where Apple Pay killed CurrentC before it could even get started. Now CurrentC holdouts like 7-11 and CVS are finally accepting Apple Pay because CurrentC is likely dead forever.

Apple Pay is steadily growing because it offers a secure ay to use a credit card without giving a merchant your credit card number. Hackers target merchant computers because they know merchants know little to nothing about security. With thousands of credit card numbers stored on a merchant’s computer, it’s an easy target for hackers to attack.

If nothing else, people should use a digital payment system like Apple Pay solely for the security. Of course, that means people will need to use an Apple product as well such as an iPhone or Apple Watch, which is what Apple really wants people to do. Once people get used to Apple Pay, it will be harder for them to switch to a rival system like Google Pay or Samsung Pay. Thus Apple Pay not only makes Apple steady money, but it also helps keep people from switching to rival products.

That’s exactly why Google Pay and Samsung Pay exist, except that Samsung Pay and Google Pay are competing against each other in the same Android market. Why use Samsung Pay if you can just use Google Pay and switch to rival Android products in case you don’t want another Samsung phone?

For security, use Apple Pay. Whenever you see Apple Pay available, try it. It will keep your credit card secure and encourage more merchants to offer Apple Pay (along with Google Pay and Samsung Pay). The more people use digital, secure payment systems like Apple Pay, the less likely hackers will steal your credit card. The choice is simple. Do you want security or not. If so, then use Apple Pay.

To read more about Apple Pay being accepted by CVS and 7-11, click here.