NEW YORK – Apple has already lined up an impressive list of banks and credit-card issuers to support Apple Pay, the new mobile-payment service it announced earlier this week. Now all it needs is more merchants and customers.

Apple hopes its service, Apple Pay, will prompt shoppers to ditch their wallet and make purchases with an iPhone. The system relies on a technology known as near-field communication, or NFC, that has had trouble winning acceptance from merchants, according toa recent piece in the Wall Street Journal. The article cites one source claiming that fewer than 10% of merchants currently support NFC readers.

In the article, the Wall Street Journal quotes Richard Crone, CEO of payments advisory firm Crone Consulting, saying "Apple has rallied the issuing bank side, but not the merchant side.” Crone cited companies such as Best Buy who have actually turned off their NFC-enabled devices in recent years. (Best Buy and Walmart have both announced that they do not intend to participate in Apple Pay.)

In part, mobile payments have suffered from a classic chicken-and-egg situation. Smaller merchants in particular were reluctant to install the systems — which can cost $300 to $500 per device — because few consumers were using them. Moreover, merchant fees for mobile-payment systems can be higher than for plastic cards.

However, Apple may benefit from good timing, as many retailers are already planning to install new payment terminals in advance of the October 2015 EMV migration deadline.