Apple Pay opens for business in Italy with support from three banks

Apple has officially launched its mobile payments service in Italy, a 61 million people country and the third-largest national economy in the Eurozone. Apple Pay launched in the country with initial support for Visa and MasterCard debit and credit cards issued by Carrefour and UniCredit, as well as Boon prepay.

Boon is a European prepaid service and app that lets users conduct transactions at all point of sale terminals that accept MasterCard contactless payments. Boon customers are currently allowed to register prepaid MasterCard cards with Apple Pay.

According to Apple’s website, support for additional banks will be added later this year.

Some of the official partners listed on Apple’s website included merchants and companies such as Auchan, Autogrill, Eataly, LaGardenia, H&M, Leroy Merlin, Limoni, OVS, Simply Market, Unieuro and more.

After registering their card with Apple Pay by tapping Add Credit or Debit Card in the Wallet app on any iOS device with iOS 8.1 or later, Visa and MasterCard holders can start using the service to pay for their purchases in stores, within apps and on supported websites via their iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch or Touch ID-enabled Mac.

The service could soon launch in Belgium and South Korea, circumstantial evidence suggests.

Last month, Apple Pay launched in Taiwan.

Apple’s mobile payments service is currently available in these 16 markets:

  • Australia
  • Canada
  • China
  • France
  • Hong Kong
  • Ireland
  • Italy
  • Japan
  • New Zealand
  • Russia
  • Singapore
  • Spain
  • Switzerland
  • Taiwan
  • United Kingdom
  • United States

Visit the iOS Feature Availability webpage for the full, continually updated list of countries, banks, credit unions and other financial institutions that currently support Apple Pay.

In related news, Apple Pay in the US added support for more than two dozen new financial institutions earlier today. Additionally, Liaoning Rural Credit Cooperatives in Mainland China now supports Apple Pay, too.

According to Recode, the Cupertino giant is secretly developing a peer-to-peer service for transferring cash digitally between friends, plus virtual prepaid cards that would run on Visa’s debit network and work with Apple Pay.