Apple Pay comes to over 20 more US & Russian financial institutions

In the latter group are AK BARS Bank and Gazprombank. Apple noted that Gazprom is supporting MasterCard credit and debit cards.

There are now 15 Russian financial institutions backing Apple Pay, many of them with the same MasterCard ties. Yandex.Money, for example, requires that people have a prepaid MasterCard.

As has become standard, the U.S. additions are primarily regional, sometimes revolving around a single city. The full list includes:

• Bank of Grove
• Boulder Dam Credit Union
• Boundary Waters Bank
• Community 1st Credit Union
• Decorah Bank & Trust
• First State Bank of the Florida Keys
• FirstLight Federal Credit Union
• Great Lakes First Federal Credit Union
• Heritage Bank
• Maquoketa State Bank
• McFarland State Bank
• OneWest Bank
• Oxford University Bank
• Peoples Bank (MS)
• Pioneer Federal Credit Union
• Rhinebeck Bank
• River Valley Credit Union (MI)
• River Valley Credit Union (OH)
• Royal Bank
• South Central Bank
• The Infirmary Federal Credit Union
• Unison Credit Union

Apple Pay is continuing to expand worldwide, the most recent new market being Taiwan, which joined on March 28. In some markets though Apple is struggling to expand merchant and/or bank support — in Australia, some major banks have refused to adopt the platform if they can't get access to the NFC chips in iPhones, which might give their own platforms more equal footing.