Roger Fingas
Customers of U.K. bank Barclays will have to wait until early 2016 to use of Apple Pay on their iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches, according to an email from the company's CEO of Personal and Corporate Banking.
"We have signed up for Apple Pay and will launch it very early in the New Year," Ashok Vaswani said in an email response to a customer complaint. "We truly value your custom and hope that you continue to bank with us particularly since we are launching this shortly."
Barclays has been a conspicuous gap in Apple Pay's U.K. coverage. The platform first launched in the region July, and has since come to most major banks there, such as Lloyds, HSBC, and Santander.
In July Barclays suggested that its support of Apple Pay was "imminent." Ultimately, though, it missed not only the U.K. launch of Apple Pay that month, but also an expanded rollout in mid-September.
The exact reason for the delay is unknown, but a bank's support of Apple Pay typically only comes after negotiations over fees and other issues. Barclays has also been attempting to promote its own wireless payment system, bPay.
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11 Comments
Barclays have stalled on Apple Pay for months, instead they launched the abysmal product that is bPay (which they want you to purchase).
Barclays will loose customers over this (I suspect they don't really care anyway).
I left Barclays after 10 years when Apple first introduced Apple Pay. It was very easy to move across to First Direct - and they gave me £100 for switching! Not mention getting much better customer telephone support. I didn't trust Barclays when they said they would enable Applr Pay "imminently" and in the "near future".
Well, 2016 is less than 3 months away. Barclay will eventually fall in line.
Now that vendors will be responsible for fraudulent charges if the don't upgrade their cash register terminals to support EMV credit cards in the US Apple Pay will get better support.
With the release of iOS 9, vendors will soon take advantage of the reward/loyalty cards in the new Wallet app as well, leading to more Apple Pay Support.
It was too long for me. I ditched my Barclays credit card of 10 years. I'm really glad I did as I actually got a better deal from nationwide. Apple Pay has really taken off here in the U.K. due to the widespread availability of contactless chip and pin terminals. Obviously that last statement does depend to a certain extent on your location but I travel with work quite widely and have a pretty good hit rate. As the case for Apple pay's improved security over a physical card and pin becomes more embedded I would really like to see Apple Pay decoupled from contactless and have the £30 limit lifted completely.
The new year? Could be anytime then. It's a it like how long it takes them to clear a cheque. I'm tired of waiting and going to open another account.