Apple Pay in the UK is slowly rounding up all the major banks and getting them onboard. Following the addition of HSBC and First Direct last month, Halifax and Lloyds customers can now use Apple Pay from today. The service is still rolling out so if your cards don’t activate immediately don’t fret. Check again in a few hours.
This brings the total number of Apple Pay supporting banks in the UK up to 11. The full list is below:
- American Express
- First Direct
- HSBC
- Halifax
- Lloyds
- NatWest
- NationWide
- MBNA
- Royal Bank of Scotland
- Santander
- Ulster
The main holdout, Barclays, continues to be mum on a timeframe for their support but at least they have said it is coming eventually. As of September 1st, the contactless limit for mobile payments was raised to £30 meaning Apple Pay can be used in even more situations.
Apple Pay works on iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch as well as the brand new iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s for mobile payments. Touch ID enabled iPads also allow Apple Pay to be used within apps for quick purchases.
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At last! And as I was sure about, the Apple event had nothing to do with it, they didn’t even mention new banks for Apple pay in the UK. But it’s great they finally added them :)
Apple pay has been truly a life saver. I left my bank card at my sisters, didnt even realise until i went shopping and came to pay at the tills. Thank you Apple for Apple pay. Pull my phone out and without any problems paid for it using Apple pay. Really helps now thats its a maximum spend of £30 not £20. One day might be able to use Apple pay without having to worry about going over the limit!
One word: barclays.
Yes indeed.
Barclays and Barclaycard dropping behind other card providers. I guess it’s because they are still clinging to hopes for their own paytag technology. I’ve already switched from Barclaycard to another provider because of this.
At the moment apple-pay is a startup and needs the banks help, but this will steadily move until it is Barclays who are disadvantaging themselves not apple.
I really like that all credit card designs look nicer on Apple pay than in reality. A little bit of simplification makes a big difference. (And I am not just talking about the embossed names and numbers here.)