Apple in Talks with Major Banks to Launch Apple Pay in UK During First Half of 2015

[northy124]

From the US rollout it seems still only a minority of shops accept it. I doubt smaller supermarkets and local shops would accept it straight away, if ever.

That's largely because the majority of stores in the US lack contactless terminals whereas the UK has plenty of contactless terminals, hell the small corners stores do too.

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Those complaining about contactless in the UK, where do you live? London is contactless central and one could, in theory, use Apple Pay with US issued cards in the UK so Apple Pay will be an easy roll out, it's just whether or not banks will be on board.

 

[ZCT]

FWIW Latin America and Asia mostly use chip and signature, so the US aren't the only ones.

Sure, but I'm saying we should have been on the cutting edge, like we are with Apple Pay, not sitting around accepting second rate technology, and then worrying every time a company like Target gets hacked and hackers now have all our data.

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It's not that they'd never support Apple Pay, but from the US rollout it seems still only a minority of shops accept it. I doubt smaller supermarkets and local shops would accept it straight away, if ever.

You'd be surprised. Many of the existing terminals can already accept Apple Pay. There's a local grocery chain in my home state with only a handful of stores that take it already.

British stores already have set up for chip and PIN and many contactless. Probably only be a minor adjustment to get ready for Apple Pay.

If the UK was willing to accept chip and PIN as far back as 2004, you'd think they'd be eager to try something even better.

 

[tmiw]

Sure, but I'm saying we should have been on the cutting edge, like we are with Apple Pay, not sitting around accepting second rate technology, and then worrying every time a company like Target gets hacked and hackers now have all our data.

IMO it's very unlikely that we'll ever adopt PIN on a widespread basis anyway. Lost/stolen fraud is something like 15% or so of total credit card fraud IIRC (card not present and counterfeit were 40% and 30%ish respectively) and the parties involved simply don't want to spend lots of money to accept/require PIN where they haven't already. For instance, restaurants aren't adopting the portable terminals like in Europe; on another forum someone mentioned at least one restaurant POS that has a chip slot on the side that has no ability to accept PIN.

Also, long-term trends indicate that the majority of spending is going to be done online instead of in person. Combined with the currently high levels of CNP fraud it makes more sense to focus on that and counterfeit than lost/stolen. Besides, we're so late to the party that contact EMV is basically obsolete already. If Apple Pay and Google Wallet significantly take off here we'll probably skip straight to that from chip and signature instead of adopting PIN.

 

[Rigby]

So what data are we talking about? Didn't Tim Cook explicitely state that Apple Pay works because Apple doesn't collect data about its customers?

Let's have a look to what Apple has to say:



So what data collection are we talking about?

They may be talking about the transaction data that Apple collects anonymously (see your own link). Many banks are in the business of running analytics on their customer's transaction data and selling anonymized data to retailers and other companies for market research purposes etc. Apple could do the same thing with their anonymized data.

Also, from a technical perspective, anonymization is usually not perfect and often the data can be tied back to individuals by cross-referencing with other data sources. Personally, while I think Apple Pay has pretty good privacy standards, I still wish Apple wouldn't collect any transaction data at all, anonymized or not.

 

[gnasher729]

There won't be a limit because Apple Pay has security. The £20 is to protect you for not needing to put in a pin code

It has been reported by Americans who tried their cards in the UK that for payments over £20 the terminal just doesn't accept _any_ NFC payments. Doesn't matter how safe Apple Pay is, because they don't even look at it.

If that is the case then the programming of the terminal will have to be changed.

Those complaining about contactless in the UK, where do you live? London is contactless central and one could, in theory, use Apple Pay with US issued cards in the UK so Apple Pay will be an easy roll out, it's just whether or not banks will be on board.

One can, in practice. Some readers here report that they have done it.

 

[ZCT]

IMO it's very unlikely that we'll ever adopt PIN on a widespread basis anyway. Lost/stolen fraud is something like 15% or so of total credit card fraud IIRC (card not present and counterfeit were 40% and 30%ish respectively) and the parties involved simply don't want to spend lots of money to accept/require PIN where they haven't already. For instance, restaurants aren't adopting the portable terminals like in Europe; on another forum someone mentioned at least one restaurant POS that has a chip slot on the side that has no ability to accept PIN.

Also, long-term trends indicate that the majority of spending is going to be done online instead of in person. Combined with the currently high levels of CNP fraud it makes more sense to focus on that and counterfeit than lost/stolen. Besides, we're so late to the party that contact EMV is basically obsolete already. If Apple Pay and Google Wallet significantly take off here we'll probably skip straight to that from chip and signature instead of adopting PIN.

I believe that there is a legal change coming in October that will shift responsibility for credit card fraud to retailers who do not accept chip cards. One of the advantages of the chip is the extreme difficulty in reproducing it, compared to a magnetic strip.

Hopefully with retailers forced to update their card readers or face fraud liability, they will end up getting readers that can do NFC.

The other consideration is that if we had gone EMV like all the other major developed countries, some of the big hacks like Target would have been less dangerous.

We've kind of missed the boat on EMV, so hopefully Apple Pay and Android equivalent systems will take off around the world, so I won't have to find special cards that make travel easier.

 

[captain cadet]

Still no iTunes Radio in the UK so I'll believe this when I see it...

I got a feeling they stopped with iTunes Radio and will use the beats service which we could see soon for free for IOS

 

[r3loaded]

google wallet isn't available in the UK? because its such a simple implementation I thought it was available everywhere in the world that used NFC terminals. Oh well learn something new everyday.

Nope, it only ever worked if you had a US Google Play account and used US credit cards. Heck, the app wouldn't even launch if you didn't have a US account.

 

[940272]

Apple have released iPhone mini? When and where?

No, I mean in order to survive in certain markets they should release an iPhone mini

 

[Zxxv]

No, I mean in order to survive in certain markets they should release an iPhone mini

lots of one armed people want an iPhone, especially in emerging markets in the middle east where they have been victims of war and landmines.

 

[ron7624]

Anyone moving banks because one allows them to use Apple Pay and another doesn't (yet)? I don't think so. Moving banks is a major hassle.

No, wouldn't move banks, but don't want my bank connected necessarily. A credit card is safer and literally makes you money like the Barclay Rewards master card. I have earned over 100 US dollars that has gone toward paying on my cc card balance. I use the card like I would have used a debit card, ie don't buy anything that I can't immediately pay for, and think I've got the bull by the horns with my personal system. Since I pay it off weekly, I've not paid a penny in interest.

 

[kdarling]

That's largely because the majority of stores in the US lack contactless terminals whereas the UK has plenty of contactless terminals, hell the small corners stores do too.

Yet according to mutliple sources I've read, relatively few people use contactless in the UK. For example:

“It is incredible to see that six years after the first contactless cards were issued in the UK, more than 70% of the country still have not been issued one.

The lack of penetration is even more surprising in London, due to the high profile contactless transport initiatives that were rolled out earlier this year. When we compare these results to Compass Plus’ 2013 survey, it does show a significant increase in both the awareness and use of contactless cards across the country,” said Maria Nottingham, CEO of Compass Plus GB.

“In 2013, nearly 40% of the public revealed they did not even know what contactless payments are and less than one in 10 people had actually made a purchase using their contactless card in the previous month.

Part of the problem is similar to chip cards in the US -- the banks are simply unwilling to pay to hand them out to every customer. Another problem is educating the public.

Those complaining about contactless in the UK, where do you live? London is contactless central and one could, in theory, use Apple Pay with US issued cards in the UK so Apple Pay will be an easy roll out, it's just whether or not banks will be on board.

Interestingly, not only do most people in the UK not have a contactless card, but your intuition is correct: the further you get from London, the less people trust or use them.

 

[kdarling]

Banks worry about data Apple is getting from Apple Pay

It is understood the bank is uncomfortable with the amount of personal and financial information Apple wants to collect about its customers.

Some executives fear Apple Pay and the data it delivers to Apple could serve as a beachhead for an invasion of the banking industry.

They may be talking about the transaction data that Apple collects anonymously (see your own link). Many banks are in the business of running analytics on their customer's transaction data and selling anonymized data to retailers and other companies for market research purposes etc. Apple could do the same thing with their anonymized data.

I thought the same thing:

...Apple also collects some anonymous data, which perhaps the banks might object to, for either privacy, intel, or competing info reasons.

(For contactless purchases, Apple collects location, and time of purchase. I think they could use this to provide a map of Apple Pay compatible merchants. For in-app payments, Apple collects app, merchant, amount, time info.)

As it turns out, the banks are not worried about just the info that Apple directly collects.

Apple also demands information back from the banks.

An electronic payment site obtained a copy of an Apple Pay Contract:

Beyond fees, the contract also requires issuers to produce, through the card network, an extensive set of statistics for Apple regarding their Apple Pay activity, including nearly three-dozen categories of quantifiable information.

Categories include number and dollar volume of credit and debit activity, average ticket, breakdown of transactions between in-store and in-app usage, and top 100 merchants by charge volume.

Digital Transactions

(When Apple says they don't collect info during a purchase, they're telling the truth, but not the whole truth. They're not collecting personalized or general purchase info themselves, but they're still getting tons of useful purchase information fed back to them.)

Reading the comments from this and other payment sites about the Apple Pay contract, it appears that the banks are uncomfortable not only with giving Apple so much data, but also the way that Apple has empowered the card brands/networks (Visa,MC,Amex) as a major part of the whole Apple Pay infrastructure.

The extent to which the agreement harnesses the networks for Apple Pay — and involves close monitoring by Apple — could bolster the position of these players relative to financial institutions in ways other mobile-wallet programs don’t.

“The (credit card) networks are fully embedded in the product, which obviously strengthens their position with regard to financial institutions,” says Oglesby. “[The contract] simultaneously makes Apple a major customer of the networks, which is a strong position for Apple.” - DT

 

[H2SO4]

Anyone moving banks because one allows them to use Apple Pay and another doesn't (yet)? I don't think so. Moving banks is a major hassle.

I always find it strange when people say that. Moving banks is as easy as pie.

People on the whole do things because they end up retaining more of their money.
I quite often hear, ‘Oh I’ll shop in XX becauase they take Apple pay’. Oh no you won’t, you'll very likely shop where the deals are good enough Apple Pay or not.

 

[bigchrisfgb]

There is a photo of the draft T&C's for Lloyds bank going around.

If Lloyds are having Apple pay then you would think that TSB who are still owned by Lloyds will have it as well.

 

[ZCT]

There is a photo of the draft T&C's for Lloyds bank going around.

If Lloyds are having Apple pay then you would think that TSB who are still owned by Lloyds will have it as well.

American Express are on board in the US, yet my American Express Corporate Card is still a no go.

So who knows how these decisions are made.

 

[johnnyturbouk]

Apple should launch Apple Pay in Japan.
Japan introduced NFC based mobile-payment system over 10 years ago and has now the largest number of NFC enabled point-of-sale terminals (over 1 Million) in the world. iPhone is also the dominant smartphone in Japan, with near 50% of market share in the country.

I was blown away when i visited Japan back in 2006, and saw people paying for item with nfc.
Kyoto and Osaka are two of my favorite places on the planet

Report from the Torygraph, just as unreliable as the Daily Mail - read the comments for the view of their readership.

Good ol DM, if society was governed by the DM, we would all, still live in caves, and grunting would have never evolved into PIE.