Wells Fargo is offering one-time payments as an incentive to try Apple Pay. Customers willing to make a first-time credit card transaction through the service are being given $20, while a debit or prepaid transaction is worth $10. Both offers expire after November 30th; the $20 credit should appear on a statement in one or two billing cycles, but the $10 credit should appear in a checking account within 45 days.
Banks have a strong incentive to endorse Apple Pay. While they do have to pay Apple a small fee per transaction, the platform may increase customer loyalty while simultaneously reducing the risk of fraud, for which banks are typically responsible. The combination of tokenization and Touch ID authentication should make it extremely difficult for third parties to steal card numbers.
