Apple Pay to go live in Denmark, Finland, Sweden, UAE by year's end

AppleInsider

Apple on Tuesday announced it is working to bring Apple Pay live in Denmark, Finland, Sweden and the United Arab Emirates by the end of 2017, which if completed would expand the payments service to a total of 20 countries.

Mentioned in passing by CFO Luca Maestri during Apple's quarterly conference call for the third fiscal quarter of 2017, the company did not offer estimated rollout dates for the upcoming Apple Pay availability. Maestri did say, however, that all four countries should have access to the system by the end of the calendar year.

Apple's regional webpages for Denmark, Finland, Sweden and the UAE do not yet show reference to Apple Pay, suggesting negotiations with banks and credit card providers are at this point fluid. The company typically takes localized Apple Pay pages live when a rollout is imminent.

Interestingly, Maestri did not include Germany as an forthcoming rollout country. In February, Apple updated Apple Pay support documents in Germany to include a full translation of the standard "About Apple Pay" document, as well as custom explainer graphics. Follow-up reports claimed Apple might face an uphill battle with German banks that are not eager to cede transaction fee revenues.

Launched in 2014, Apple Pay entered its 16th region, Italy, in May with support for Carrefour, UniCredit and a card marketed by European prepaid service Boon. Prior to that, both Taiwan and Ireland gained access to the service in March.

Apple Pay is getting a major boost with person-to-person payments in iOS 11. The long-awaited feature will allow users to send money to each other using a debit card or, for a 3 percent fee, credit card. Received funds are placed on an "Apple Pay Cash" card processed through partner Green Dot, which can be applied to online or Apple store purchases, or transferred to a bank account.

applesauce007

And the hits just keep on coming.

Go Apple Go!

MplsP

I was in Finland and Sweden last week and Apple Pay is definitely live there already. In fact it seemed to be more available there then it is here - I used it at the majority of the stores I visited.

lostkiwi

MplsP said:

I was in Finland and Sweden last week and Apple Pay is definitely live there already. In fact it seemed to be more available there then it is here - I used it at the majority of the stores I visited.

That will just be NFC contactless payments. If you are from a country with ApplePay enabled banks/credit cards then when you travel abroad you can use the contactless card terminals wherever you are.  Which is awesome. 

That being said I hope ApplePay will continue a rapid roll out internationally. They need to get some mindshare in place before Wechat/wepay or AliPay get a roothold. In China those two services have pretty much taken over from cash in the bigger cities. 

[Deleted User]

Germany is missing. Of course:
Most stores and restaurants in Germany up until a few years, if not even months ago, would not accept credit cards, and sometimes not even debit cards (at a restaurant I have been told in a typical customer friendly way "there is a bank with an ATM across the road").
Not until the EU forced the transaction fees to be less than 1%, the stores didn't even have a reader, and if, and old one without contactless option "which never works".
So, although Germany is the number one economy in EU and the richest, most of its transaction are still cash based, or debit card based. 
The word "convenience" is not in the vocabulary. And because: rules.
Ikea, just up until a few months ago, did not accept credit cards in the region of Munich. They activated the service with a caveat - not a single sticker showing you could pay with a CC. I just discovered you could, because an american friend paid with it as he had nothing else on him.
So, Apple Pay would be nice, but I would be already happy if I could pay ubiquitously with a CC contactless (which requires no PIN or signature for payments less than 25€).
BTW: in the USA it doesn't seem to work anywhere really...

Senchaholic

MplsP said:

I was in Finland and Sweden last week and Apple Pay is definitely live there already. In fact it seemed to be more available there then it is here - I used it at the majority of the stores I visited.

What? I live in Sweden, and I haven't heard a thing about this. Everything that's written about Apple pay talks about when Apple eventually is going to implement it here.
I think you must be confused. 

Tuubor

Yesss! Finland finally!! Can't wait to pay with my Apple Watch or iPhone at the local supermarket.

superkloton

pakitt said:

Germany is missing. Of course:
Most stores and restaurants in Germany up until a few years, if not even months ago, would not accept credit cards, and sometimes not even debit cards (at a restaurant I have been told in a typical customer friendly way "there is a bank with an ATM across the road").
Not until the EU forced the transaction fees to be less than 1%, the stores didn't even have a reader, and if, and old one without contactless option "which never works".
So, although Germany is the number one economy in EU and the richest, most of its transaction are still cash based, or debit card based. 
The word "convenience" is not in the vocabulary. And because: rules.
Ikea, just up until a few months ago, did not accept credit cards in the region of Munich. They activated the service with a caveat - not a single sticker showing you could pay with a CC. I just discovered you could, because an american friend paid with it as he had nothing else on him.
So, Apple Pay would be nice, but I would be already happy if I could pay ubiquitously with a CC contactless (which requires no PIN or signature for payments less than 25€).
BTW: in the USA it doesn't seem to work anywhere really...

It's not only because of rules and fees but mostly because of one reason: Germans hate the plastic. They have huge security and privacy concerns about a lot of things (remember Google being forced to blur out houses on demand in Street View?) so that's why card terminals aren't available at most places. Too few people would use it. And that's also the reason why Germany is not on Apple's priority list for Apple Pay. 
Good thing I moved to Sweden, can't wait! Here you can pay your strawberries at the street market or the taxi driver with credit card. Everything goes with credit card (and Swish) here. 

meriminkki

Senchaholic said:

MplsP said:

I was in Finland and Sweden last week and Apple Pay is definitely live there already. In fact it seemed to be more available there then it is here - I used it at the majority of the stores I visited.

What? I live in Sweden, and I haven't heard a thing about this. Everything that's written about Apple pay talks about when Apple eventually is going to implement it here.
I think you must be confused. 

Like Lostkiwi said above: Apple Pay in stores works like a NFC-enabled card or e.g. Nordea Pay on Android devices. For existing Apple Pay users (who have a credit card issued in another country where Apple Pay is available) Sweden is OK to shop in. This is probably the confusing part about "being available". Once you have registered a card to Apple Pay, any shop that has a NFC-enabled cashier terminal works without any special "Apple Pay" update.

What is not possible at the moment is registering as an Apple Pay user if your accounts and cards are in a Swedish bank. The banks would rather use their own wallet apps and keep their brand visible, and get the transaction fees to themselves (like it is possible to do on Android). Apple Pay is about Apple charging transaction fees, forcing a bank to add tokenization servers for this to work,  and not really giving the banks anything in return.

jbdragon

Senchaholic said:

MplsP said:

I was in Finland and Sweden last week and Apple Pay is definitely live there already. In fact it seemed to be more available there then it is here - I used it at the majority of the stores I visited.

What? I live in Sweden, and I haven't heard a thing about this. Everything that's written about Apple pay talks about when Apple eventually is going to implement it here.
I think you must be confused. 

Many countries have NFC enabled terminals. You can use keyfobs and contact less credit cards and whatnot on them. So even Apple Pay will work on them. It's just that the banks in those countries don't support Apple Pay themselves. So if you live there, you're out of luck. If your a tourist from a country that supports Apple Pay, you can use it in other countries that support NFC on their terminals even though they don't support Apple Pay in that country. because the banks in that country don't support Apple Pay. If they don't, then how is anyone in that country suppose to sign up to Apple Pay? They can't!!!! This is nothing new. For example in Canada, most places support NFC and people in the U.S could go into Canada are use Apple Pay just fine, but those in Canada were out of luck because the banks in Canada didn't support Apple Pay. Has Apple Pay finally come to Canada? I don't remember. Far more places in Canada you can use Apple Pay then in the U.S.

Gilliam_Bates

pakitt said:

…Most stores and restaurants in Germany up until a few years, if not even months ago, would not accept credit cards, and sometimes not even debit cards (at a restaurant I have been told in a typical customer friendly way "there is a bank with an ATM across the road").

I agree x 10
Just spent four days in Berlin (their capital!). At only one (1!!!) single store or restaurant out of about one hundred did they accept any type of card payment …and that machine was broken that day. I mean, it's a shame.

The rest of the western world is at 2017 now but digitally, Germany seems to be stuck in 1980:s. Not only their car makers but their entire industry is going to suffer so much from this digital illiteracy.

But it's nothing but their own fault as they have deliberately down prioritized this for decades — believing internet will somehow go away and be replaced by good old mechanics or something.