It remains to be seen if Apple Pay will become the norm for payments that Apple hopes it will be, but the company is at least well on its way to expanding its base of potential customers.
At its Worldwide Developer Conference today, Apple's top Apple Pay exec Jennifer Bailey confirmed both that the mobile payment service will soon be available at over 1 million locations in the U.S. (adding support for Discover cards in the process), and that the service will be launching in the United Kingdom sometime next month, where it will be supported at some 250,000 locations. That latter number includes the London transit system, and some of the country's biggest banks.
Also coming to Apple Pay is the ability to store retailer credit cards and loyalty cards in addition to regular credit and debit cards, as well as support for Square mobile payments, which will apparently be available when Square rolls out a new card reader this fall. And to round things out, Apple also confirmed that Passbook, the repository for movie and sports tickets, loyalty and payment cards, boarding passes, coupons, and other passes generated by compatible apps, will now simply be known as Wallet.
