Apple Pay Goes Live in Brazil

Back in February, Apple made an important announcement around Apple Pay: it would be making an arrival in Brazil for use in stores there. Now, the announcement has come to pass, and Apple Pay has made landfall in one more new country, giving it that much more room to operate.

The notion that Apple Pay would arrive in Brazil actually goes back to December, where bank documentation arose showing that Brazil was a target for the platform. Apple’s last earnings call featured Tim Cook ringing a note of further assent that the major South American country was on tap to land the platform.

Now, the final move has been made, and Apple Pay is available in Brazil, complete with a string of apps—over a dozen, at last report—that work with the system. Users will not only be able to make payments in apps but also in stores, using an Apple Watch or an iPhone. It’s also working with cards from Itau Unibanco, which is not only the biggest bank in Latin America, but the 10th largest bank in the world, proving that Apple Pay has some significant support.

The fact that we’re still able to point out new arrivals for Apple Pay is actually one of the biggest problems Apple Pay is facing. While it was clear that Apple Pay was going to have a slower rollout than competitors like Android Pay, the fact is that the farther Apple goes, the more resistance it will run into. This may not be such a problem; some places were likely considered a bad move for Apple Pay because there aren’t that many Apple users around to begin with. Throw in the fact that some carriers just aren’t ready for a mobile payments system due to lack of infrastructure and Apple Pay’s slow rollout—still going since 2014—makes at least some sense.

Perhaps Apple is conceding some markets it likely wouldn’t have had a big impact in anyway. Apple’s glacial rollout, though, may not be endearing it to the users. That seems to be a chance Apple’s willing to take, which may prove a more dangerous route for the company than it expects.