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Apple Pay Confirmed to Have £20 Limit Per Transaction in UK

peterh988 said:
As I read it, you need to have the correct equipment running the correct software to allow >£20 payments. It's possible, but it seems few outlets will have the correct setup from day one. The slow uptake will be shops taking their time to get their terminals updated, either physically, or new software.

So to all intents and purposes, most people will be using older machines limited to £20 transactions at launch date.
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The headline reads that there is a £20 limit. Apple pay partners will almost certainly not have the limit, why would the likes of Nando's etc sign up to it when the majority of it's customers will not be able to pay their bill?
It is possible to come across retailers who don't have the limit this the limit does not always exist like the headline reads.
It would have been better to say there is no limit and then go into further detail to explain limitations to the limit than it would have been to have a headline that claims the limit is still in place.
 
Still no exact date confirmation then? I'm hoping it will come as part of iOS 8.4 and just flip an internal switch that allows us to start registering cards to Passbook/Wallet, but still haven't seen any evidence that supports this (or any other theory for that matter).
 
peterh988 said:
Not much in the Apple Store you can buy for under £20. Hope they all get the future tech sorted to lift this limit.

My local supermarket has gone NFC on all its checkouts (24) but they get limited use as most people passing through doing a weekly shop are spending way more than £20.
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From the article:
To accept Apple Pay for transactions over £20, your payment terminal must be capable and configured properly, and your payment provider needs to support the latest network contactless specifications.
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I'm sure Apple's own stores have the updated specs.
 
Well I guess this explains why it took so long to get rolled out for our friends across the pond.

Still scratching my head as to why it's so hard implement in Canada, who seem to already have systems purpose built for this kind of thing...
 
The one thing that pee's me off is that Asda, a Walmart owned store here have said they aren't going to accept Apple Pay. Fair enough if Walmart has a competitor, but in my local right after Apple Pay was announced here, they disabled ALL contactless payments.
 
UK? What about Moldovia!!! 😱People here are dying to use :apple:Pay
The list should it started like this:
Moldovia
USA
And then the rest..
😉
 
peterh988 said:
Not much in the Apple Store you can buy for under £20. Hope they all get the future tech sorted to lift this limit.

My local supermarket has gone NFC on all its checkouts (24) but they get limited use as most people passing through doing a weekly shop are spending way more than £20.
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I don't know why Apple would be stupid and use outdated NFC terminals in their own stores. They don't even currently have the existing contactless payment terminals in their stores, as the technology currently does not allow for transactions above £15. However, they will probably accept the modern, Apple Pay specific contactless payment technology, and remember you'll be able to pay through the Apple Store app with a touch of your thumb and pick up your item in-store.
 
keysofanxiety said:
Argh, trip down memory lane. Remember when Freddos were 5p? 🙁 Now you need a mortgage to get one.
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You've just triggered an old TV ad song, stored deep in my head!

"I've got five pence, wish that i'd got five pence,
What can you buy for five pence?
It buys a Caramac bar!

There's some for you, and you, and me,
Whoever knew that five P went so far?"

(Probably better with some 70's kids singing and dancing)
 
I think the article title is appropriate.
It does away with people expecting Apple Pay to be limitless. Specified that the limit of contactless will still apply (£20), but there may be some exceptions.
Saying "Apple Pay confirmed to not have a limit" is misleading. Especially considering that companies listed as supporting Apple Pay, will still have the £20 limit and not be limitless.

Most McDonalds and KFCs that I've been to, still have a £15 limit, and haven't even updated to £20 limit. I very much doubt they will be limitless for Apple Pay.

BP have confirmed that they will be limited to £20 at launch (increasing to £30 in October), but working on removing the limit, yet can't give a timescale of when that will happen. So again, a "Supports Apple Pay" launch company that will not be limitless.
 
tommyjay said:
Great answer! Thank you so much! I personally don't have a contactless card, just the iPhone, and for transactions over 1000 CZK (about $45) I have to enter my card's pin in the terminal. I know that the US has been a slow adopter (compared to EU etc) with the chip cards, and I just never understood how come for the past year I kept hearing about these restrictions to the US for using Apple Pay, even though since I got my iPhone I never had any issues, no matter where I went. Contactless terminal = Apple Pay accepted. At least that has been my experience no matter where I was in Europe, so far.

Thank you for the clarification johnnyjibbs!! 🙂
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The restriction is more at the banks end, Apple pay will work anywhere in the world where contactless terminals are pretty much, but only banks in US and soon UK will be setup to accept the backend.
 
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r-m said:
I think the article title is appropriate.
It does away with people expecting Apple Pay to be limitless. Specified that the limit of contactless will still apply (£20), but there may be some exceptions.
Saying "Apple Pay confirmed to not have a limit" is misleading. Especially considering that companies listed as supporting Apple Pay, will still have the £20 limit and not be limitless.

Most McDonalds and KFCs that I've been to, still have a £15 limit, and haven't even updated to £20 limit. I very much doubt they will be limitless for Apple Pay.

BP have confirmed that they will be limited to £20 at launch (increasing to £30 in October), but working on removing the limit, yet can't give a timescale of when that will happen. So again, a "Supports Apple Pay" launch company that will not be limitless.
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I don't think anyone would argue that "Apple Pay confirmed to not have a limit" would be a better headline, both that and the existing headline are equally misleading. "Apple Pay confirmed to have potential for limitless transactions, £20 limit for non-partners" would be more along the right lines.
 
Billberryjuice said:
"Apple Pay confirmed to have potential for limitless transactions, £20 limit for non-partners" would be more along the right lines.
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Sorry for being picky, but even that wouldn't have been entirely true, with BP being a partner and having a £20 limit.
Maybe it's just one of those articles that should've gone with a generic "Apple releases support document with more Apple Pay UK details".
 
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I suppose a difficulty for customers will be knowing whether the limit applies or not (depending on whether the terminals are updated). Do the retailers still get to display Apple Pay stickers if they have the £20 limit?
 
r-m said:
Sorry for being picky, but even that wouldn't have been entirely true, with BP being a partner and having a £20 limit.
Maybe it's just one of those articles that should've gone with a generic "Apple releases support document with more Apple Pay UK details".
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Indeed, I thought that as I wrote it, which is why I put "more along the right lines" instead of claiming it was perfect, of course headlines can't contain the entire story! Perhaps, yes, a vague one as you suggest would be best.
 
dannyyankou said:
Click-bait title. It should really say "Outdated NFC terminals will have £20 limit with Apple Pay in the U.K."
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Indeed...

Or even "The U.K.'s wide existing NFC infrastructure means Apple Pay will be accepted in an extensive range of shops all across the country, although it will be limited to £20 where the NFC terminals are an older generation."
 
I just started using the contactless feature on my UK Amex card and I've discovered a few things about UK contactless payments due to anomalies compared to Chip and PIN (CnP) payments that I have noticed regarding how the transactions are posted to my account and my subsequent research.

I think the issue with the £20 limit is to do with how, or more particularly when, a payment is authorised. If you do a CnP transaction the terminal contacts the credit card issuer's servers and it won't complete the transaction until the authorisation has been received from the servers. You can actually see this happening in many cases if you watch the machine print the receipt, it prints half of it and then pauses. This is because it has got to the line where it needs to print the authorisation code on the receipt so it pauses at that point (and during busy shopping days this is usually where the shop assistant says after 10 seconds or so "I'm sorry, the servers are really slow today") and then once the servers respond the machine finishes printing the receipt.

When doing a contactless payment the point of sale terminal (POS) doesn't wait for authorisation from the back end servers. The contactless payments are authorised against the card user's account at a later date which is why a contactless payment doesn't immediately appear online as a pending transaction and can take a couple of days before it is posted to the cardholder's statement. Some discussion of this here: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5121532

As I understand it Apple Pay has the ability to authorise at point of sale via the per-transaction tokens that it generates in which case it is, for the merchant, just as safe as a CnP transaction. If the card is reported stolen or in some other way blocked by the servers the merchant will find out before allowing the customer to walk out with hundreds or even thousands of pounds worth of goods. A pub selling drinks or some other sub-£20 transaction probably thinks that the risks are about the same as having a dodgy £20 note passed off to them and so are willing to risk not having the card validated at point of sale and suffering the loss if, when the transaction is sent to the credit card company at a later date, it is rejected as being an invalid card. It's even possible that the credit card issuer might underwrite these losses, I don't know about that one and I somehow doubt it but then again the credit card companies have been pushing contactless very hard so who knows (if anyone does know I'd be interested in the answer).

I assume that UK merchants can simply treat an Apple Pay request as a regular UK contactless card transaction with no changes to their system but, if they want the PoS systems to say "ah, this is Apple Pay so I'll try to authorise the transaction immediately" then some reconfiguration is needed which is why some might not bother initially.
 
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sananda said:
I suppose a difficulty for customers will be knowing whether the limit applies or not (depending on whether the terminals are updated). Do the retailers still get to display Apple Pay stickers if they have the £20 limit?
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I think the only way to find out, will be to ask.
The Apple Pay FAQs:
How do I start accepting Apple Pay in my shop?
Apple Pay works with Visa, MasterCard, and American Express cards and existing payment providers.

To accept Apple Pay in your shop, you need to have a contactless payment-capable point of sale terminal. Contact your payment provider so they can set up your terminal, and tell them you would like to accept Apple Pay.

Here are some payment providers that support Apple Pay. If your payment service provider isn't listed, you should still check with them to learn how they can set up Apple Pay for you.

How do I let my customers know they can pay with Apple Pay?
Display the contactless payment symbol and the Apple Pay acceptance mark prominently on your point of sale terminal to let your customers know they can use Apple Pay in your shop.

Download the payment mark to use on your terminal screen. Order Apple Pay decals to put on your shopfront window and register.

Go to Apple Pay for developers to learn how to let your customers know they can use Apple Pay within your app.
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Basically saying to support Apple Pay, just be contactless payment-capable. And display a decal.
 
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