Apple Pay has today become available in the UK for making mobile payments, but not at every retailer and not with every bank. There are now, according to 9to5Mac, more than 250,000 “officially blessed” locations where Apple Pay can be used, and seven banks are on board. HSBC, Barclays and First Direct will join them later.
Though it had long been thought that Barclays would not be participating in the Apple Pay scheme, especially as it had been busy advertising a similar service of its own called ‘bPay’, the bank today took to Twitter to express its excitement about Apple Pay. It added that Barclaycard debit and credit cards will later include support for the service, but did not specify exactly when.
The bank that has most surprisingly missed the launch is HSBC. As we reported yesterday, the organization had very recently apparently leaked 14 July as the date when it would begin supporting Apple Pay, and had even long been named on Apple’s website as a launch partner. Today, 24 July was cited as when HSBC customers can begin using the service.
First Direct, too, was supposedly set to support Apple Pay from launch. However, First Direct has revealed on Twitter that it will start supporting the digital wallet service later this month.