“Apple is poised to reveal that it is planning to launch Apple Pay, its contactless mobile payments service, in Britain this summer,” Christopher Williams and James Titcomb report for The Telegraph. “The Silicon Valley giant is expected to make the announcement on Monday in San Francisco at its annual jamboree for software developers, industry sources say. The service will be switched on in around two months, they said.”
“It will mark a major development for the payments industry. Multiple attempts by mobile operators and banks to get contactless mobile payments up and running in Britain have failed amid industry infighting and consumer indifference,” Williams and Titcomb report. “Apple has been in talks with banks and retailers about its launch since last year, sources said, and has the clout to drive adoption by both industry and consumers. The iPhone accounts for more than 40% of smartphones sold here, and owners tend to be big-spending consumers.”
Williams and Titcomb report, “Mike Cowan, a senior executive at MasterCard, said the company was ‘absolutely ready’ to support Apple Pay in the UK.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple Pay, already the #1 mobile payment service, is set to get even bigger!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
Apple needs to focus on getting Pay device owners to set it up and use it while also helping small businesses take and promote that they are Pay merchants.
Android pay? what a orginal idea. haha. Apple pay is THE only secure way… what bunch of a shameless losers.
This is a deliberate parody, right?
Watch this absolutely drive usage and adoption of IPhone 6/6 plus and Apple Watch in the UK; it will also establish the model for what we will observe as Apple Pay is rolled out to successive countries, that already have contactless payment capability in place (unlike the USA, which is catching up plus having to deal with pretenders such as MCX, which will be buried over coming months).
Fact is, Apple introduced the key security differentiator, Touch ID, some two years ago, on iPhones, iPads and now the Apple Watch; the competition have failed miserably in matching this secure and convenient method for identification; there is only one winner in this space globally and that is Apple inc.!!
As Apple only remains “poised” to offer Pay abroad, other players are scrambling to offer their dedicated payment apps.
This may quickly lead to a cacophony of apps for every single store chain/bank. Not unlike all the proprietary newsreaders for newspapers and magazines.
It would be nice to see this taking off. But Im not sure it will be such a big thing. Contactless payment is very widespread in the UK, some parts of Europe and Australia. It is the US that has been slow to adopt this sort of tech. Contactless payment is the norm in many countries. Im looking forward to Apple Pay being available but Im not sure it is such a game changer in places other than the USA.
True that many countries have the capability for contactless payment and in many places it is well used (Canada for Example). The difference between contactless payment with a credit card or debit card is the security it offers the customer since no private information is passed through the system. Apple uses a one time only digital token to complete the payment. This is much more secure than waving chip cards in front of readers.
And they’ll be greeted with the same BS they’re getting here in the US. Retailers will claim that there’s no demand for it when the truth is that they don’t want to give up collecting data on their customers.
Wait for late October 2015. That’s when retailers have to have the new terminals or face liability for fraudulent payments. Then if Pay doesn’t work on the new POS terminals then it is because they intentionally blocked it.
I’m happy to know that retailers will be held responsible. That BS that happened at Target should have shut them down. They knew they had a breach, but didn’t announce it until the end of the Christmas shopping season of 2013. I’ll never shop there until they adapt Apple Pay. They can’t be trusted.
And still no Apple Pay in Canada. Canadian Banks are widely using contactless payments but are dragging their feet on an agreement with Apple.
I am an American who’s living in London. I use Apple Pay all the time. They are already set up for it. Hopefully retailers here won’t block it like Target did in the U.S. I love Apple Pay!!
It works on The Underground, as well!
Londoners are lucky… It’s very rare I the shires. 😕
I must admit I didn’t know it works on the underground (overground too no doubt) though I suppose as Oyster and contactless cards is the standard there is no reason it shouldn’t, thats great to hear.
However I really can’t believe the false contention in this article, that contactless has not taken off it is widely used, all the major supermarkets allow it and many small stores as NFC tills are the norm and yes on my journeys over the weekend I was surprised how many were paying contactlessly with their cards on trains and buses. What planet is the Telegraph operating from these days.
Reading it again are they just referring to phones I wonder? In that case they are right but then Android has hardly set a standard people wish to use when it is easier to use their cards. ApplePay will change that.