Apple Pay coming to China this week, France in months, reports say

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AppleInsiderAppleInsider
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in iPhone edited February 2016
Apple Pay could be on the verge of launching in China and France, with the former debut potentially happening as soon as Feb. 18, a pair of reports indicated on Monday.




Chinese support is scheduled to start that day at 5 a.m. local time, according to the official WeChat account of China Guangfa Bank credit cards, as spotted by Tech in Asia. When interacting with the account, choosing an option for Apple Pay availability now offers the Feb. 18 date. Guangfa cards are connected with China UnionPay, Apple's official Apple Pay partner in the region.

Shoppers will allegedly need to have iOS 9.2 and/or watchOS 2.1 to make payments.

An announcement for France is expected in the next few months, possibly during Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in June, a source for iGeneration claimed. There the service is expected to have a number of banks and card issuers in tow, unlike Canada and Australia, which are currently limited to American Express cards.

While Apple has not officially discussed any plans for France, the company is committed to launching Apple Pay in China in early 2016. In late January, some local shoppers reported successful transactions.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 9
    nolamacguynolamacguy Posts: 4,758member
    do you remember when people complained about AP only being in the US? less than two years ago. yyyyeah. 
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  • Reply 2 of 9
    bestkeptsecretbestkeptsecret Posts: 4,309member
    nolamacguy said:
    do you remember when people complained about AP only being in the US? less than two years ago. yyyyeah. 
    As Pay rolls out to more countries, the complaints will change from "works only in the US" to "doesn't work in x country".
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  • Reply 3 of 9
    JeffAshejeffashe Posts: 8member
    Apple has a lot of catching up to do in China. My work requires me to travel there each quarter. Using my WeChat app, I haven't really needed my credit card or cash for the past three years. I used the app for booking flights and hotel rooms, reserving train tickets, paying taxi fares and restaurant bills, shopping online, ordering food and furniture delivery, buying movie tickets, etc. I really wish we could have this level of cashless payment infrastructure in the US.
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  • Reply 4 of 9
    zozmanzozman Posts: 393member
    nolamacguy said:
    do you remember when people complained about AP only being in the US? less than two years ago. yyyyeah. 
    Well apparently Australia has it, but it only works with american express, most shops & businesses don't accept it (Surcharges are too big on the shops), so you tell me, does Australia really have apple pay yet? 
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  • Reply 5 of 9
    MickeyMmickeym Posts: 25member
    This will only limited to China and France?
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  • Reply 6 of 9
    komokomo Posts: 25member
    What's wrong with Canada?
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  • Reply 7 of 9
    Marvinmarvin Posts: 15,551moderator
    komo said:
    What's wrong with Canada?
    The banks apparently but the 9.2.1 update has been noted as having support for the Canadian debit network:

    http://www.iphoneincanada.ca/news/apple-pay-china-france-interac/

    That won't suit everyone because people still like to use credit cards to spend money they don't have at the time but it's progress. In Canada, Interac debit transactions are used for about 27% of online purchases so that should work for a significant portion of mobile commerce. Once the trust in Pay keeps building and consumers start relying on it, the adoption will keep growing. Secure mobile payments are the way transactions need to be going. The only way criminals sell cards is with the numbers. Once devices can get secure account codes without cards, criminals have no way to get the codes except to hack the banks. This also makes it trivial to renew the codes.
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  • Reply 8 of 9
    komokomo Posts: 25member
    Marvin said:
    komo said:
    What's wrong with Canada?
    The banks apparently but the 9.2.1 update has been noted as having support for the Canadian debit network:

    http://www.iphoneincanada.ca/news/apple-pay-china-france-interac/

    That won't suit everyone because people still like to use credit cards to spend money they don't have at the time but it's progress. In Canada, Interac debit transactions are used for about 27% of online purchases so that should work for a significant portion of mobile commerce. Once the trust in Pay keeps building and consumers start relying on it, the adoption will keep growing. Secure mobile payments are the way transactions need to be going. The only way criminals sell cards is with the numbers. Once devices can get secure account codes without cards, criminals have no way to get the codes except to hack the banks. This also makes it trivial to renew the codes.

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  • Reply 9 of 9
    komokomo Posts: 25member
    Thanks Marvin!
    I still would like to see it come to Canada
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