Apple Pay has gone live in the UK today with over 250,000 officially blessed locations (although Apple Pay will work at any standard NFC terminal) and seven banks. In the runup to the launch, the main holdout has been Barclays bank who instead promoted their alternative ‘bPay’ service.
Now, though, they have changed their tune. Over Twitter, Barclays announced that it is actually ‘really excited’ about Apple Pay and will add support for the service to Barclaycard debit and credit cards in future.
We are really excited about the launch of Apple Pay and will bring Barclays debit cards and Barclaycard credit cards to Apple Pay in future.
— Barclays UK (@BarclaysUK) July 14, 2015
The institution offered no firm dates as to when it would add Apple Pay integration but at least it means Barclays bank customers can be assured that they will be able to use Apple Pay eventually.
On a related note, some UK customers have been disappointed that HSBC and First Direct do not support Apple Pay on launch day in the UK, despite being advertised for the last month on Apple’s website as launch partners. For some reason, the rollout at HSBC and First Direct has been delayed for a few weeks. HSBC customers can expect Apple Pay to launch for them on the 28th July. There is no firm date for First Direct customers other than an assurance that Apple Pay is ‘coming soon’.
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In future?
I’m amazed it took them so long to pick up on all the bad feeling against them on social media, they were never really going to have a choice in this.
As for HSBC it looks as if this is their slap on the wrist for upsetting Apple with their Twitter feed.
does apple pay need the new ios public beta? as i have ios 8.4 and i cant see any options for adding my cards to passbook (it still hasnt been renamed to wallet)
I’m on 8.4 in the UK, and clicking on Passbook lets me add a card to Apple Pay. However, I bank with the Lloyds and they haven’t launched it yet.
i just got it. didnt close the app or anything. it just appeared out of nowhere! i think all my banks will go live in the second wave
Wallet is a io9 feature not 8.4. Passbooks still works with Apple pay. No update needed
It should show up automatically but in case it doesn’t try switching the region (in settings) to US temporarily.
Just tried to register a card.
On IOS 8.4 – pass book has the add card facility, this worked, it scanned my card no problem. (Security number from signature strip obviously needs to be added manually.)
Click to register.
Reports: “Your issuer does not yet offer support for this card”
Clicking ‘Learn more” shows my bank/card as one of the ones listed as supported in UK.
Looks like a bit of a teething problem – try again later.
Checked on bank/card issuer (NatWest) website – high profile coverage saying they are live.
Guess it’s a first day glitch.
What are the chances that I am a customer of 3 banks (HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds) and none of them happened to have Apple Pay on the UK’s launch date? haha!
Where did you hear it would be 24th? Haven’t seen that mentioned anywhere
I added Nationwide Debit and Credit card + MBNA MasterCard. I can confirm that BarclayCard and Tesco Credit Cards don’t work (issuer not supported)
Does Apple Pay work in merchants not “listed” on the news websites but have the “contactless” logo by the reader (e.g. Greggs, selected National Rail stations, snack vending machines, Poundland)?
Yea they work
I finally got my NatWest card, registered it with Apple Pay, and it works in places “unofficially” supported. It is fine in Poundland, WH Smith, Morrisons though it was 50/50 in campus vending machines (probably an issue with the machine provider as it sometimes rejects payment cards too). Apple could just say that it is accepted in most stores currently accepting Paywave (Visa) or PayPass (MasterCard).
It’s a shame Tesco and Sainsburys, the two merchants I shop with most, don’t accept contactless, let alone Apple Pay yet and these are where the queues can take ages to clear.
Just been to Costa and they told me about Apple Pay and asked if I wanted to pay using it. They also had signage up. Obviously I couldn’t because I’m with Barclays :(
Apple pay needs a lot more awareness both amongst people and merchants. Instead of those ads like “if it’s not an iPhone” Apple needs to highlight that feature and how Apple pay is very very convenient with the watch too for older iPhones(which is what I have). Check out is a breeze. I think Apple is wasting an opportunity here. People are completely unaware, it needs s big push.