Barclays, a large British multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in London, has confirmed that it will be rolling out support for Apple Pay sometime in late March.
In an email dated January 12 and sent to customer Oli Foster-Burnell, a copy of which was shared on Twitter and obtained by Engadget, Barclays CEO of Personal and Corporate Banking Ashok Vaswani said they will launch Apple Pay “within the next 60 to 75 days”.
In December 2015, Apple officially confirmed plans to roll out its mobile payment service in China in co-operation with UnionPay, as soon as early-2016. Well, here we are in 2016 and a pair of videos discovered by MacRumors gives us a good indication that Apple Pay might be on the verge of launching in the 1.33 billion people market.
The videos show a customer choosing a UnionPay card in Apple Pay and completing a purchase at McDonald's by holding their iPhone near a QuickPass-enabled Verifone payment terminal.
After bringing Apple Pay to Canadian users 24 hours ago, the iPhone maker's mobile payment service is now available Down Under with American Express.
Amex issued card members in Australia can now add their card to Apple Pay using the Wallet application on their iPhone or through Settings. Local bank-issued debit and credit cards are not supported yet.
Using Apple Pay with American Express lets customers enjoy all the rewards and benefits of American Express membership and pay with Apple Pay anywhere contactless payments are already accepted.
In addition to adding Canada as the third country where Apple Pay is available (limited to American Express cardholders at launch), availability of Apple's mobile payments service in the United Kingdom, where Apple Pay launched this summer, increased today with financial institutions TSB and Tesco Bank now supporting the service. This leaves Barclays as the last UK major bank without support for Apple Pay.
A year following its October 2014 debut in the United States, Apple's mobile payments service is now available to American Express cardholders in Canada, the company said on Twitter.
“Cardmembers can earn the same rewards they already enjoy using Amex with Apple Pay,” said the financial services corporation. In addition to the US and UK, where Apple Pay launched this summer, this marks the third country where the service is available.
According to The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, Apple is in talks with banks in the United States on a brand new person-to-person mobile payment service that would be rival to PayPal’s Venmo platform and could launch as soon as 2016.
According to people familiar with the ongoing talks, it's unknown at this stage whether any of the banks have cut a deal with the iPhone maker and how the rumored service would tie into the banking industry’s existing infrastructure.
Silicon Valley giants Apple, Amazon, Google, PayPal and Intuit have formed a coalition to promote the benefits of financial technologies in order to help the U.S. government better understand these technologies and ensure greater innovation in financial services, Re/code reported Tuesday.
The initiative is called the Financial Innovation Now and aimed at accelerating the pace of change in financial services, according to the official website.
Those who have tried Apple Pay can attest that paying with your iPhone couldn't be simpler. You just hold your device near the contactless reader with your finger on Touch ID or your face authenticated with Face ID to pay for the goods or services you bought.
But wouldn't it be great if you could choose any payment cards, passes, and loyalty cards from your Apple Pay account on the Lock screen, without having to unlock your iPhone?
You can now make your purchases by double-pressing the Side button or Home button to access Wallet without unlocking your iPhone, a feature partially borrowed from the Apple Watch. You then simply choose a card and authenticate your purchase via Touch ID or Face ID.
Here's how you can enable Wallet access right from the iPhone's Lock screen with just a few taps.
Apple on Wednesday added 18 new banks and credit unions to the growing list of Apple Pay-supporting issuers in the United States. With these additions, Apple Pay is now compatible with more than 450 financial institutions nationwide.
Launched in October of last year, Apple Pay is a mobile payment service that allows users to pay for goods and services using their iPhone or Apple Watch. It’s accepted at hundreds of thousands of retailers and restaurants around the country.
When Apple Pay launched in the United Kingdom in mid-July, it was limited to transactions up to £20 without entering in a PIN number or signature, a cap imposed on almost all contactless payments in the country. Tuesday, the cap rose to £30 per touchless payment without entering a PIN number or providing your signature.
As noted by The Verge, the new £30 cap is applied to all contactless payments in the United Kingdom, including those made via contactless cards that work without any other authentication.
Notch up another victory for Apple's mobile payment platform as the University of Oklahoma announced Monday that it will begin accepting Apple Pay across its entire campus. The initiative will allow students to pay with Apple Pay using their NFC-enabled devices like the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch at any of the four-hundred service locations scattered across the campus, including restaurants and bookstores.
Apple on Thursday announced that it has teamed up with payment service PayAnywhere on a new mobile NFC card reader. It will attach to iOS devices, and support both traditional credit cards and those stored within Apple Pay.
The reader, which will be available exclusively in Apple Stores in September, will open the door for smaller businesses to begin supporting Apple Pay. PayAnywhere is easy to setup and there are no monthly fees to worry about.