If all goes well, some time within the next week Apple Pay will be up and running. Short-term it won’t cause a ripple in market share or consumer behavior (see previous post), but long-term it is likely to be seen as an important mobile-payments milestone.

Regardless, I look forward to using it. But with only a couple contactless terminals in my usual Seattle haunts, I guess I’ll be buying lots of coffee at Peet’s and Tully’s while I test it.

But I digress.

The subject for today is what banks are and aren’t doing to ride on Apple’s mobile coattails. There has been little FI marketing so far, other than PayPal’s NY Times full-pager poking fun at it (15 Sep 2014, see inset). And some media buys from Visa and MasterCard.

Eleven financial institutions were named on 9 Sep 2014 at the official launch of Apple Pay: Six major launch partners listed below and five “coming soon” issuers (see note 1).

The big six have been almost silent since the first week when four of the six issued press releases, emailed customers (note 2) and/or posted promos on their websites.

Issuers may now be gearing up their marketing machines, which were caught relatively unaware last month, due to Apple-prescribed secrecy, for a pre-holiday Apple Pay push. However, I would not be surprised if major issuers, who’ve already seen contactless card-usage fizzle, take a wait-and-see approach for the remainder of 2014.

In any event, it will be interesting to watch. 

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Apple Pay FI launch partner marketing to date
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American Express 
   Press release: No
   Email: None reported
   Website promotion: None reported
   Website site search: Nothing listed

Bank of America
   Press release: No
   Email: One reported by The Financial Brand (link) though I did not receive it    
   Website promotion: Nothing now, but promo reported at launch by Jim Marous in The Financial Brand
   Website site search: Links to landing page (link)

Capital One
   Press release: link
   Email: One sent to my consumer account (12 Sep 2014)
   Website promotion: None reported
   Website site search: Nothing

Chase
   Press release: Quoted in Apple’s official release (link)
   Email: One reported by MediaLogic (link) though I did not receive it    
   Website promotion: Nothing now, but promo reported at launch by The Financial Brand
   Website site search: Nothing

Citibank
   Press release: link
   Email: None reported
   Website promotion: Nothing now, but promo reported at launch by The Financial Brand
   Website site search: Nothing

Wells Fargo
   Press release: link
   Email: Two sent to my consumer account (11 Sep and 19 Sep 2014)
   Website promotion: Nothing now, but promo reported at launch by The Financial Brand

   Website site search: Nothing

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Second wave issuers
______________________________

Perhaps because they are smaller and must try harder, three of the six next-wave Apple Pay issuers (note 1) have promos running on their websites today:

Barclaycard homepage (one of three promos in rotation)

PNC Bank homepage (in lower left corner)

US Bank homepage (one of three promos in rotation)

 

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Notes:
1. The five other issuers mentioned at the Apple launch were: Barclays, Navy Federal Credit Union, PNC, US Bank, USAA. Yesterday, Arvest Bank announced it was supporting the system as well.
2. Despite having 10 card accounts (four business and six personal) across the six launch partners, I have received emails only from two (Wells Fargo on 11 & 19 Sep 2014 and Capital One on 12 Sep 2014).