Michelle Thornton, manager of core products at the Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.-based CO-OP Financial Services, said, “We will absolutely be getting a number of credit unions through enrollment this year. Potentially we could have perhaps 25.”

Those lucky few credit unions that will go live in 2014 have comparatively firm live dates from Apple. Most other credit unions said they received vague promises of going live sometime in the first quarter of 2015.

CU Times spoke with three card processors and three credit unions about their experiences so far with Apple Pay. The credit unions asked for anonymity because their agreement with Apple mandates silence, but they said they wanted to share their experiences with other institutions.

Read more: Processors do the heavy lifting for CUs …

Various processors, particularly Visa, giant Atlanta-based payment processor First Data and the smaller, credit union focused processors are doing most of the work in getting credit unions ready for Apple Pay.

Credit unions said they have to provide Apple with proof they have passed many tests involving use of Apple Pay; one source said the present number is 65 tests.

Another said Apple keeps adding new tests. However, nobody said the tests, which involve nuts and bolts issues such as notifying a cardholder that a card has been added to Apple Pay are not difficult, but time-consuming.

In some cases, third party processors are running all the tests for their clients and assembling the results in a format that meets with Apple's approval.

The Apple Pay special sauce – the tokenization process in which the Primary Account Number of a card is stripped out and replaced with a token – is done by Visa and MasterCard. Credit unions have essentially no part to play in provisioning tokens.

In fact, a large, East Coast credit union that said it had a firm early December go-live date said its role in getting ready for Apple Pay was minimal.

“We signed the contract,” said the credit union's senior vice president of operations, who asked to remain unnamed. “We have not done a lot of work. We provided card art and we trained our call center staff. That's about it.”

Training the call center to field Apple Pay questions is an Apple mandate, many sources said. Phone representatives need to be ready to answer easy questions from members, but also harder questions, such as members return an item after losing the paper sales receipt. Apple has detailed instructions for that process in its Apple Pay FAQ. As a company, Apple is strongly committed to customer service and, sources said, it expects the same commitment from its financial institution partners.

The two other credit unions supported that position, saying their actual hands-on work activating Apple Pay has been minimal. Their processors, they said, are doing most of the heavy lifting.

Read more: Debit/credit synchronization causing delays …

An Apple requirement that both credit and debit channels go live with Apple Pay simultaneously has been a barrier, some said.

“It's a mess,” said Brandon Kuehl, an executive at the Des Moines, Iowa-based The Members Group, which is working with hundreds of credit unions on Apple Pay.

Kuehl elaborated that similar issues have arisen with EMV migration and, in both cases, the problem traces back to a Durbin Amendment requirement that mandates debit card must be processed on at least two independent networks. EMV was never designed to accommodate that, wrote Javelin Strategy + Research analyst Nick Holland in a report, “The Durbin Dilemma.”

Apparently that dilemma reared its head anew with Apple Pay.

At least one large Texas credit union said although it wanted to be in the Apple Pay queue and was ready on the credit card side, it experienced stubborn issues on the debit side and has no firm Apple commitment at this point.

The problem appears to be limited to some but not all PIN debit networks. However, as Kuehl optimistically noted, Visa, MasterCard and First Data are working hard to resolve issues.

Kuehl also said that TMG expected to get at least some credit unions live in Apple Pay in December.

Read more: The cost of partnering with Apple …

What about the costs involved in Apple Pay?

Apparently, Apple is charging 15 basis points on each transaction. Visa and MasterCard have additional fees for tokens, although sources said that both card networks indicated would not charge token fees through 2015.

A vice president at a large Northeast credit union that said it will go live on Apple Pay early in 2015 said, “The costs are not large. They are costs of doing business, especially when you look at the security of an Apple Pay transaction.”

Many experts said they believe an Apple Pay transaction involving a token and a user's fingerprint authentication is, in fact, the most secure transaction presently available.

“If you want a better service, you have to pay for it,” the Northeastern credit union vice president said.

A senior vice president at a large West Coast credit union said the institution expects to go live early in 2015, but does not yet have a firm go-live date.

“I am not saying the 15 basis points doesn't bother me,” the SVP said. ”What I am saying is that the ramifications of not being on Apple Pay, and how that would influence member perception of us, are bigger than the small fees.”

What if Apple Pay fails to live up to its early hype? Early reports have surfaced that actual retail transaction numbers are lagging.

“It doesn't matter to us,” the vice president at the Northeast credit union said. “We want to show our members that we are involved in new technology and Apple Pay does that.”

As for the credit unions that impatiently want to go live on Apple Pay, Hall said, “Yes, some are very impatient. But most have accepted the reality that getting into Apple Pay just will take time.”

Apple is the time keeper. Not Visa, not MasterCard, not the processors. Apple so far has indicated that it wants a system that is working smoothly with few hitches. Getting there and staying there means that slow is the way to go.