Apple Pay launches in Germany with support for 15 banks and services

AppleInsider

Making good on promises to take Apple Pay live in Germany before year's end, Apple on Tuesday activated services of its mobile payments solution in the region with support for 15 financial institutions including Comdirect and Deutsche Bank.

Apple Pay Germany.

Apple Pay partners pushed out notifications early Tuesday morning, notifying customers that their credit cards are now ready to register within the Wallet app, according to local reports posted to Twitter and other social media outlets.

Initial support is provided by Comdirect, Deutsche Bank, Fidor Bank, Hanseatic Bank, HypoVereinsbank and prepaid service Edenred. Mobile banking services Boon, Bunq, N26, o2, Square and VIMpay also offer integration, as do credit card companies American Express, MasterCard and Visa.

Apple Pay is accepted at a number of retailers in Germany including Aldi, Avia, Berhska, Cigo, Ditsch, dm, Galeria Kaufhof, HEM, Kaufland, Lidl, Netto, Real and more.

The release arrives four months after Apple officially announced plans to deliver Apple Pay to Germany, and one day after a report citing banking industry sources said the service would launch sometime this week. Rumors surrounding a German release have circulated for months, but a firm launch timeline remained elusive until last month when Apple updated its regional Apple Pay website to read "coming soon."

Apple's German language website has not been refreshed to reflect the new availability, but that is expected to change as the service continues to roll out over the coming hours.

Germany's relatively late adoption is thought to be a result of pushback from local banks; As with other major market introductions, like Australia, fees were a bone of contention for Germany's financial institutions.

Prior to Germany, Apple debuted the first-party payments solution in Belgium and Kazakhstan in late November.

Apple Pay launched domestically in 2014 with support for a handful of banks and integrations with major credit card companies. The product has since expanded to a number of countries around the world, including major markets like Australia, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Russia and the U.K. With today's availability, Apple's payments service is available to iPhone, Apple Watch and Mac users in 33 territories.

mbenz1962

Great! Step one is complete.  Now hopefully the bigger banks and credit unions here will start getting on board in 2019 (step 2).  To really be successful they need Sparkasse, RV bank, Commerzbank, PostBank, and a few big online banks like DKB.  They don't have to start all at once, but once one of those starts offering ApplePay the rest will fall in line.

spheric

That’s probably not going to happen until their own PayDirekt service dies its slow and merciless, inevitable death. 

frantisek

Big step anyway. It can create demand from clients on big banks.

Carnage

spheric said:

That’s probably not going to happen until their own PayDirekt service dies its slow and merciless, inevitable death. 

I was actually surprised the Deutsche Bank was on board. That's a big win. As far as I know they have their own solution and they didn't partner with Google.

aevar

hey Apple, how about bringing Apple Pay to Iceland? Only 3 banks to deal with, they are all pretty quick to adapt new tech and always copy what the others are doing. Vast majority of people in Iceland use touch free cards already and 90% of payments go through credit or debit cards, hardly any cash. Most of the card machines here are already equipped to use Apple Pay and I’ve often seen tourists use it here.  It’s a no brainer. Also, bring Apple Music and compete with Spotify that has own the market here for 5 years.

urahara

Finally, after 4 long years waiting (I am aware of a work-around to use the other country/card). 
I have just set-up my Wallet. Now I need to go and test it (and enjoy)

dreyfus2

mbenz1962 said:

Great! Step one is complete.  Now hopefully the bigger banks and credit unions here will start getting on board in 2019 (step 2).  To really be successful they need Sparkasse, RV bank, Commerzbank, PostBank, and a few big online banks like DKB.  They don't have to start all at once, but once one of those starts offering ApplePay the rest will fall in line.

Apple should just educate users that they do not need any of these to use it. I am with Postbank (they are crap, but they have a branch just around the corner) and just use VIMpay. Charging the virtual Mastercard is just a matter of seconds and you can use the balance instantly. No fees and a very nice app (better than anything the banks here have). Used it two times today and it was almost too flawless :-)

mbenz1962

dreyfus2 said:

mbenz1962 said:

Great! Step one is complete.  Now hopefully the bigger banks and credit unions here will start getting on board in 2019 (step 2).  To really be successful they need Sparkasse, RV bank, Commerzbank, PostBank, and a few big online banks like DKB.  They don't have to start all at once, but once one of those starts offering ApplePay the rest will fall in line.

Apple should just educate users that they do not need any of these to use it. I am with Postbank (they are crap, but they have a branch just around the corner) and just use VIMpay. Charging the virtual Mastercard is just a matter of seconds and you can use the balance instantly. No fees and a very nice app (better than anything the banks here have). Used it two times today and it was almost too flawless :-)

I was actually thinking of a solution like that earlier.  It isn't ideal, as I'd prefer my bank (Sparkasse) to support ApplePay directly so that I can have all of my banking and accounts in one place.  This solution may be a good stop gap as-well-as a method to judge if having ApplePay is convenient enough on a daily basis here in Bundesrepublik Deutschland to offset the inconvenience of switching banks.

I had never heard of VIMpay before, so ill take your suggestion and look into them.  Thanks!

spheric

aevar said:

hey Apple, how about bringing Apple Pay to Iceland? Only 3 banks to deal with, they are all pretty quick to adapt new tech and always copy what the others are doing. Vast majority of people in Iceland use touch free cards already and 90% of payments go through credit or debit cards, hardly any cash. Most of the card machines here are already equipped to use Apple Pay and I’ve often seen tourists use it here.  It’s a no brainer. Also, bring Apple Music and compete with Spotify that has own the market here for 5 years.

Also, a total potential userbase of 300,000 people at 100% market share across the entire population. 

Now subtract kids and others who may not own a mobile device. 

At iOS' current market share of 53% of mobile devices in Iceland, that's what — *maybe* 100,000 potential users, total? 

aevar

spheric said:

aevar said:

hey Apple, how about bringing Apple Pay to Iceland? ...

Also, a total potential userbase of 300,000 people at 100% market share across the entire population. 

Now subtract kids and others who may not own a mobile device. 

At iOS' current market share of 53% of mobile devices in Iceland, that's what — *maybe* 100,000 potential users, total? 

Sure, it’s a small number, 340.000 but kids use cards at a very early age and have fairly new iPhones. But we do get 2 million tourists here every year, but like I said, they are already using Apple Pay here. It’s an easy market and I’m sure it’s not difficult to implement. Infrastructure already exists. Could boost some iPhone sales as well... 

arthurba

As others have said - it’s like Australia- they need the big banks on board, namely Sparkasse.  But hopefully like Australia they will come around eventually...

aevar

spheric said:

aevar said:

hey Apple, how about bringing Apple Pay to Iceland? Only 3 banks to deal with, they are all pretty quick to adapt new tech and always copy what the others are doing. Vast majority of people in Iceland use touch free cards already and 90% of payments go through credit or debit cards, hardly any cash. Most of the card machines here are already equipped to use Apple Pay and I’ve often seen tourists use it here.  It’s a no brainer. Also, bring Apple Music and compete with Spotify that has own the market here for 5 years.

Also, a total potential userbase of 300,000 people at 100% market share across the entire population. 

Now subtract kids and others who may not own a mobile device. 

At iOS' current market share of 53% of mobile devices in Iceland, that's what — *maybe* 100,000 potential users, total? 

5 months later; https://iphone.appleinsider.com/articles/19/05/08/apple-pay-launches-in-iceland-with-support-from-arion-banki-and-landsbankinn

now we only wait for Apple Music...

FirozLalani

Informative, i was unaware of this