New Apple Pay plans include store cards, UK launch in July
At its Monday WWDC keynote Apple annouced a number of planned changes to Apple Pay, including the addition of store rewards cards, and plans to launch in the United Kingdom in July.
The U.K. launch will initially involve eight banks such as HSBC, Lloyd's, and the Royal Bank of Scotland, and a range of merchants such as Boots and Marks & Spencer, spanning a total of 250,000 locations. Among them will be the London public transportation system, allowing people to use an iPhone or Apple Watch for bus and Tube transit.
Beginning in the fall Apple Pay will support loyalty and reward cards, with the right ones popping up automatically at a given location. Some announced merchant partners including Kohl's, Walgreens, and Dunkin Donuts.
For iOS 9, Apple will be renaming the Passbook app -- which stores both passes and Apple Pay cards -- to Wallet.
In the meantime Apple has announced that a variety of new U.S. retailers are adding support for the platform this year, including Trader Joe's, J.C. Penney, and others. Mobile payment service Square -- in theory an Apple Pay competitor -- will be launching a compatible reader in the fall. Discover credit cards will come to Apple Pay in the fall.
The U.K. launch will initially involve eight banks such as HSBC, Lloyd's, and the Royal Bank of Scotland, and a range of merchants such as Boots and Marks & Spencer, spanning a total of 250,000 locations. Among them will be the London public transportation system, allowing people to use an iPhone or Apple Watch for bus and Tube transit.
Beginning in the fall Apple Pay will support loyalty and reward cards, with the right ones popping up automatically at a given location. Some announced merchant partners including Kohl's, Walgreens, and Dunkin Donuts.
For iOS 9, Apple will be renaming the Passbook app -- which stores both passes and Apple Pay cards -- to Wallet.
In the meantime Apple has announced that a variety of new U.S. retailers are adding support for the platform this year, including Trader Joe's, J.C. Penney, and others. Mobile payment service Square -- in theory an Apple Pay competitor -- will be launching a compatible reader in the fall. Discover credit cards will come to Apple Pay in the fall.
Comments
Still no love for Canada. Booo!
But but but Google Wallet has had store cards and others for years.../s
Still no love for Canada. Booo!
One of the highest deployment and usage rates for tap and pay in the world and they can't get it together up here.
Doesn't help that our biggest banks formed a legal cartel with the express purpose of negotiating from a common front against Apple for Apple Pay.
Why isn't Barclays Bank participating with Apple Pay in the UK???
The Barclays omission sort of makes my, "what about The co-operative bank?" query seem so insignificant.
Why not Australia? It should be easy. There are only four major banks, and almost every single pay terminal is PayPass. Heck, by all accounts US linked accounts already work everywhere using Apple Pay.
Let's face it, getting Apple Pay in Australia was always going to be difficult seeing how the big four banks collude and stick together like the Russian mafia. Con-Bank (also known as Commonwealth bank as they have an integrity issue), have their own version, which they no doubt invested a few of their enormous profits they make so they will want to protect that for all its worth. Australia probably has more contactless payment points than any other country but until the cartel of banks can negotiate a hefty fee big enough for them, like other parts of the world, we'll just have to wait patiently to catch up.