According to Israeli website The Verifier, Apple Pay is likely a few days to a few weeks away from launching in Israel.
The report notes that Israeli mobile banking service Pepper recently updated its iPhone app, with the release notes for the latest version mentioning a “surprise” that would be shared at a later time.
Pepper may have accidentally jumped the gun, however, as the app briefly showed users a splash screen with an option to add the Pepper card to the Wallet app for use with Apple Pay.
MacDailyNews Note: You’d think that, by now, having launched in October 2014, Apple Pay would already be available in Israel, wouldn’t you? Oh, well, soon!
Countries and regions that currently support Apple Pay:
Asia-Pacific
• Australia
• China mainland*
• Hong Kong
• Japan
• Kazakhstan
• Macao
• New Zealand
• Singapore
• Taiwan
Europe
• Austria
• Belarus
• Belgium
• Bulgaria
• Croatia
• Cyprus
• Czech Republic
• Denmark
• Estonia
• Faroe Islands
• Finland
• France
• Georgia
• Germany
• Greece
• Greenland
• Guernsey
• Hungary
• Iceland
• Ireland
• Isle of Man
• Italy
• Jersey
• Latvia
• Liechtenstein
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg
• Malta
• Monaco
• Montenegro
• Netherlands
• Norway
• Poland
• Portugal
• Romania
• Russia
• San Marino
• Serbia
• Slovakia
• Slovenia
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• Ukraine
• United Kingdom
• Vatican City
Latin America and the Caribbean
• Brazil
• Mexico
Middle East
• Saudi Arabia
• United Arab Emirates
North America
• Canada
• The United States of America
*In China mainland, you can use Apple Pay on the web in Safari only on compatible iPhone and iPad models using iOS 11.2 or later.
I thought Apple Pay launched around August of either 2018 or 2019, no?
As an Apple user both personally and professionally for thirty years, I have owned more Apple devices than I can remember, starting with a IIci. I now live in Israel, and have largely ignored the news about Apple Pay because it didn’t relate to me here. If that’s now changing, I guess I’d better catch up to see how it might be of use!