Pei Wei, a restaurant chain in the United States, announced Wednesday that it has begun accepting Apple Pay in all of its nearly 200 locations for customers using iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch.
“Accepting Apple Pay is a win for Pei Wei because it’s convenient and gives our guests the flexibility to use their preferred method of payment,” said Pei Wei CEO Ralph Bower.
Two weeks after Apple Pay launched in the United Kingdom, HSBC and First Direct customers can now use the service. Both banks were originally supposed to support Apple Pay at launch, and were even mentioned in Apple's support document listing participating banks, but were delayed due to “some issues” until late July.
Apple Pay in the UK imposes a £20 transaction limit as a security measure due to outdated POS terminals. Apple said the £20 limit will increase to £30 in September. The cap will go away once retailers roll out more modern contactless payment terminals.
As promised, Apple Pay has officially launched today in the United Kingdom. While the service is accepted virtually anywhere there's NFC, only cards issued by US, and now UK banks, can be added to Apple Pay for the time being.
According to Apple's website, the contactless mobile payment solution is supported across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland via cards from American Express, First Direct, HSBC, Nationwide, NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander and Ulster Bank.
According to The Telegraph, UK users can now pay with Apple Pay at more than 250,000 points of sale throughout the country, including Waitrose and London's transportation networks.
MasterCard on Friday announced it'll enable Apple Pay at Great American Ball Park in time for the 2015 MLB All-Star game. Fans attending the game in Cincinnati will be permitted to pay for on-site food and merchandise with their iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus or Apple Watch during the week-long festivities, the card issuer has said.
Realized through partnership with Major League Baseball Advanced Media, the initiative will bring NFC contactless payment acceptance to the 2015 MLB All-Star Week festivities so owners of NFC-enabled Android handsets may be able to make on-site purchases with their phones.
The Apple Watch has built-in NFC, which stands for Near-Field Communication, for making wireless payments on the go. And in a typical Apple fashion, the watch doesn't even have to be in the range of its paired iPhone, nor does it have to establish a network connection, to make the payment.
Before you can start making payments with a flick of your wrist, you're going to need to set up Apple Pay on your Apple Watch. In this tutorial, I'm going to lay it all out for your and explain how to set up, manage and use Apple Pay with your Apple Watch.
Square, a mobile payment startup founded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, received an important mention during this morning's Worldwide Developers Conference keynote talk.
In going through a laundry list of new Apple Pay features, an Apple executive said even more small businesses will be able to accept Apple Pay using a new contactless card reader by Square which plays nice with Apple Pay.
Soon after the even has wrapped up, Square followed up with additional details about the forthcoming device.
Apple Pay, Apple's wireless payment system, will be coming to the United Kingdom next mont with 250,000 UK merchant locations. Commuters using London transportation system will be able to use Apple Pay, too.
Furthermore, the system will be available to Discover's 50 million card members this fall, said Apple during the WWDC keynote today.
Trader Joe's, J.C. Penneys and many other retailers will be joining Apple Pay soon. Small businesses will be supported on Apple Pay through Square via a brand new reader compatible with Apple Pay that will be available in Apple Stores soon.
By the end of this year, about half of the top 100 merchants in the United States should roll out Apple Pay to their stores, Apple hopes.
A spokesperson told Reuters today that the firm is constantly in contact with these merchants, half of whom have expressed their intent to support Apple Pay for their customers, with “many more” merchants expected to adopt the wireless payment service the following year.
If you thought paying with Apple Pay is ridiculously easy and frictionless, think again. No, I'm not referring to Android Pay, Google's near exact replica of Apple Pay that was unveiled at Google I/O yesterday.
Quietly unveiled yesterday, Hands Free is a new Google mobile app currently unavailable to the general public that promises to let you make in-store purchases without ever reaching for that phone in your pocket.
Details are scarce at the moment but it seems that Hands Free requires you to just tell the cashier you’d like to pay with Google. It's basically Android Pay without taking your phone.
Apple is about to make its mobile payment system even more appealing to merchants and customers with a likely introduction of a rewards program for Apple Pay at WWDC next month, The New York Times said Thursday.
“Apple is preparing to announce details about enhancements to Apple Pay at its software conference next month,” reads the article. “Those include a rewards program for the mobile wallet service, said two people briefed on the product.”
iOS 9, the next major iteration of Apple's mobile operating system powering the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, reportedly has built-in support for Force Touch technology which debuted on the Apple Watch, suggesting the possibility of pressure-sensitive screens on the next iPhone and iPad.
According to a new report by 9to5Mac, the operating system also features support for Apple Pay in Canada, has improved software keyboard with new designs and enhances iMessage by enabling read receipts for group chat threads and on a per-contact basis.
Amid rumors, Apple CEO Tim Cook acknowledged in an interview with Xinhua news agency on Monday that Apple is working to bring Apple Pay to China.
Cook told the Chinese news agency: "We very much want to get Apple Pay in China. I'm very bullish on Apple Pay in China," signaling the company is working quick to bring its new mobile payments service to another region besides the US.