Apple is soft launching a new iPhone Wallet app integration today that is powered by the United Kingdom’s Open Banking API. The Wallet app will now be able to show the user’s current account balance from their bank, as well as a history of deposits and payments. The balances will also be shown inline when buying something with Apple Pay, helping users be more financially aware about whether they can responsibly afford the purchase.
This integration is rolling out first as part of the upcoming iOS 17.1 developer beta. It will be available to a subset of Wallet app users in the UK, who have an Apple Pay card associated with a supporting bank.
Supporting banks in this initial rollout include Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, RBS, Monzo, and Starling.
Users can securely authorize the integration through the Wallet app, using a familiar OAuth flow in which Wallet will redirect the user to the bank’s app or website to authenticate the connection.
As you might expect, Apple’s usual privacy standards apply. Any data retrieved from this API is kept solely on the user’s device, and not stored on Apple’s servers.
International Apple users are used to bemoaning US-only features; it’s rare for the reverse to happen. However, Apple is launching this feature exclusively in the UK due to the existence of an interoperable open banking standard in the country. The path to getting a feature like this in other regions, like the US, is much less clear.
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