14 DAY TRIAL // Currently available only to US customers, Apple Pay is rolling out internationally next year starting with the United Kingdom, according to sources with knowledge of the plans.
With a rushed job listing on its web site, Apple last month accidentally confirmed plans to push Apple Pay onto banks and retailers across Europe, the Middle East, India & Africa.
The job description said, “The new London-based Apple Pay team will work to drive the roll-out of this technology across EMEIA by working with a variety of internal and external partners, including teams in the US where the product will first launch and the EMEIA organisation, as well as Issuers, payment networks and merchants across Europe.”
Coming to the UK
Now, according to sources briefed on the plans, Apple is bringing its “wave and pay” service to Great Britain. The Cupertino company has engaged in talks with the country’s biggest banks to start the rollout. According to The Telegraph, the banks are somewhat suspicious that the data supplied by customers to pay with their iPhones could be leaked. However, there are no indications (so far) that Apple’s service is in any way less secure than other contactless / NFC payment systems.
The sources cited by the British paper said that no major bank would want to miss out on Apple Pay, which allows iPhone 6 users to upload their credit / debit cards into the phone and use the iDevice to wave-and-pay at compatible registers.
Apple Pay took 1% of digital payments in the US in November, while McDonald’s said that half of all contactless transactions had been carried out using Apple’s service.
Besides the iPhone 6, customers will also be able to wave-and-pay using their Apple Watches starting next year. On non-NFC devices, like the iPad, customers can only use Apple Pay to buy stuff off web portals.
