WWDC 2015: Apple Pay Launches In The UK Next Month

Apple Pay will arrive in the UK next month with the support 70 percent of all debit and credit cards and 250,000 retailers – more than the US launch.

RBS, Natwest, Santander, Lloyds, TSB and HSBC are among the major banks to sign up for Apple Pay, but it appears as though Barclays is not among those to lend its support.

With many retailers already accepting contactless payments, much of the infrastructure is already in place, a contributory factor for so many compatible locations. Indeed, Apple said it was delighted to have so many ‘British’ brands like Boots and Marks & Spencer on board for launch.

Apple Pay UK

Brits are expected to spend £1.2 billion through contactless payments by 2020 according to recent research, making it a possibility that the UK could be a more fertile market for Apple Pay than the US, where adoption has been lacklustre.

Users can also use their iPhone or Apple Watch to pay for tube, buses and trains in London, with Transport for London (TfL) already accepting Apple Pay from US tourists for a number of months.

Speaking at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Jennifer Bailey, senior vice president for hardware engineering, said the company now had 2,500 banks on board, along with new card partners and retail partners. In total, more than one million locations now support Apple Pay.

“We’ve been hard to work at our goal of replacing the wallet,” she said, adding that ‘Passbook’ had been renamed ‘Wallet’ to reflect the fact it could now store more customer loyalty cards.

She also revealed that Square would be releasing a new Apple Pay-compatible reader later this year, although Swedish rival iZettle is working on something similar.

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