Concardis updated their homepage acknowledging the fact Apple Pay hasn’t been released in Germany yet but hoping it will do so soon.
https://www.concardis.com/apple-pay
Nevertheless the payment service provider wasn’t a reliable source, since it's only providing the hardware and Apple don’t need to make preparations, sign contracts or whatsoever in order to release its service in Germany. Apple Pay is using a system that is working for years now. Concardis is also offering payment solutions for online merchants, however, in contrary to offline retailers it does not have a market-dominating position in e-commerce and Apple isn’t forced to contract with any, since implementing Apple Pay for your online business via website or app can be done on your own. Therefore Concardis will hardly be able to spoil any insider information.
Moreover, you should be very reluctant trusting any rumours spread by any member in the forum. Those are - at best- based on information a person has heard that might be coming from someone who has insider knowledge due to his work connected with Apple Pay. People claiming to have such knowledge pass it on leading people to spread the rumour in such forums. However, those rumours are in most cases wrong, because most employees involved with Apple Pay within a bank lack actual knowledge when Apple Pay is going to be released. They can make statements about technical issues and whether a bank is actually working to implement Apple Pay. Those aren’t the people making the decision when it's going to be released. Very strict NDA efficiently prevent any bank to spoil a actual release date. So do not expect clear indications prior to a release. The release of Apple Pay in Brazil for instance hit a lot of people by surprise. Prior to the earnings call on Thursday people got their hopes up after some banks updated their apps, interpreting it as a sign for an Apple Pay release. Please don’t be fooled by such updates again. Banks won’t risk a breach of NDA by negligently spoiling any information, even if they just announce a “new feature” in the description.
That being said Apple isn’t able to prevent any information being leaked as different sources suggest there are indeed banks working to implement Apple’s payment service. It isn’t a well-kept secret that banks from countries where Apple Pay hasn’t been released yet but which are offering Apple Pay in other countries will likely be on board from the beginning when Apple Pay is released in their country of origin.
Germany is Apple’s main focus at the moment. It is the only big market for Apple where it hasn’t released its payment service yet. You can identify those markets by Apple’s release dates for new products like the iPhone. As it has been pointed out here, unique characteristics of the German financial industry and market forced Apple to postpone a start in Germany, so other countries can enjoy using the service while Germans are desperately waiting for their turn. Australia and mainly Switzerland acted as deterrents. Apple isn’t eager to repeat its mistake by launching Apple Pay for a few banks that assume the role of a digital pioneer but have a relatively small number of costumers. Due to the fact that the market is dominated by Sparkasse and Volksbank, which aren’t countrywide banks but consist of many small regional banks, Apple hasn’t one or two contract persons but far more. It is likely Apple will concentrate by signing deals with few big Sparkassen and hoping the others will follow. However, smaller banks in the union are trying to prohibit a launch at all since they fear to be left out in a market that already suffers by low interest rates by the ECB and the need to close branches, leaving only big banks and digital banks in the process of consolidation. In order to use Apple Pay in Germany in the (near) future you will probably have to switch to another bank or open another current account.
It isn’t sure whether Apple will support Girocards. Apple has at least entertained the idea, however, is reluctant to do so, because due to EU regulations the margin is even smaller compared to those of credit cards. Rumours about activation fees rather than a fee for every transaction are likely to be false. Even though such an agreement could persuade many banks, Apple won’t take a pass on those earnings, since it is trying to expand its revenue by its services like Apple Music oder Apple Pay. Furthermore, it would put Apple under pressure by other banks. In addition, people familiar with the matter concerning the technical implementation will unlikely have information regarding the financial deals between Apple and those banks as it is negotiated by a whole different department which is isolated itself and owing to their NDA prohibited to share any information with other departments. This might sound exaggerated, however, Apple has proven to take its secrecy very seriously. Regarding that, predictions in this forum about an imminent launch of Apple Pay in Germany and other countries seem at least doubtful.
