The UK is at pivotal point with regards to taking up new payment technologies.
After much hype and speculation, Apple Pay is finally here. Today Visa Europe confirmed that its UK cardholders, who bank with RBS, MBNA, Nationwide and Santander, will be able to load their cards and use Apple Pay from today. In coming months, customers from Lloyds, HSBC and TSB will also be able to use the service.
The launch coincides with Visa‘s announcement last month that it predicts the daily usage of mobile payments are expected to triple, and the amount spent to surpass £1.2bn a week by 2020. Nearly half of UK consumers want to use their mobile to pay contactless in stores and last week, Visa announced that 1bn contactless payments had been made in the last year across Europe.
British shoppers will be able to use Apple Pay at any contactless terminal. There is no spend limit on upgraded terminals and Apple Pay is compatible with any of the 2.6m contactless terminal in Europe. It is designed to work contactlessly with payments of any amount using Touch ID to verify the cardholder. At launch only a few businesses are accepting high value payments (greater than £20 contactless card limit). Any retailer can choose to accept high value payments by upgrading the software on the terminals and by the end of the year 80% of terminals will be able to accept these high-value transactions.
