Fifteen new financial institutions, including 10 credit unions, have formally connected with Apple Pay, bringing the number of participating banks and credit unions to 60 only four months after the initiative's unveiling.

Among those that now support the new digital payment platform are the $13 billion BECU and the $8 billion Alliant Credit Union, the $1 billion Altra FCU, the $1 billion Andrews FCU, the $4 billion Ent FCU, the $1.4 billion F&A FCU, the $7 billion First Tech FCU, the $9 billion Golden 1 Credit Union, the $295 million INOVA FCU and the $7.2 billion Star One Credit Union.

Last month, a handful of new financial institutions announced support for Apple Pay, including Security Service FCU, Consumers Credit Union, Virginia Credit Union, Cyprus FCU, Fairwinds Credit Union, Mountain America Credit Union, Partners FCU, and Customers Bank.

Apple Pay is a mobile payment and digital wallet service by Apple Inc. that lets users make payments using the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, Apple Watch-compatible devices (iPhone 5 and later models), iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 3. Apple Pay does not require Apple-specific contactless payment terminals and works with Visa's PayWave, MasterCard's PayPass and American Express's ExpressPay terminals.

Apple Pay showed a lot of strength upon takeoff, accounting for 1% of all digital payments in November. An ingredient of that energy comes from its ability to get issuing financial institutions engaged and enabling accounts in a straightforward way.

However, Apple Pay, like all mobile payments schemes, has an ignition problem. It has to get both consumers and merchants on board, and merchant interest depends on consumer interest. And, in the case of Apple Pay, there is another factor – access to iPhone 6's. Those iPhone 6 customers need enough hardware-enabled merchants to get them excited about dumping their plastic for Apple Pay.

To complicate matters even more, reports have claimed Samsung is preparing to launch a payments program during its Galaxy S6 launch next month.