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Apple Pay Launches in Hungary and Luxembourg
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There and everywhere, most likely. A great deal of people who buy expensive phones such as the iPhone pay for it in monthly installments through their mobile operators, regardless of how rich or poor the country is.
Hi,
So answer to your question, nobody really needs this in this world, really. People in the US don't need it. Do the Germans need it? Nope. The Dutch perhaps? Not really.
But will this make life a little easier, Yes.
People in Hungary use contactless PayPass cards for many years now, even in remote villages, you can pay with contactless cards in stores. Actually, the US was behind in rolling out that service compared to Hungary. Now that'll be just even easier since iOS can make those payments with their phones now as well.
No I don't. Not in all the details. Why do you think I asked?
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It is not like NFC payment is new, the Visa and MasterCard Network are all set up for NFC even before it was a thing in US, and that was 5 years ago. My only guess is that it is the privacy and Data collection that is holding out. But then the roll out fastened during recent months. So I was wondering what is it that trigger this difference.
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In a nutshell, Apple would release this in every country instantly if it were possible.
Seems like Apple has a clear preference for Europe, as they are in a rush to roll out Apple Pay to all European countries as soon as possible while they neglect every single other region in the world. From Apple's own listing on their website, more than 27 of the 40 currently supported countries and territories are in Europe (which will increase to more than 30 by the end of this year), while there are only 8 supported territories in Asia (including two in the Middle East), 2 in North America including the US, 2 in Oceania (Australia and New Zealand) and one in Latin America (Brazil). Meanwhile, all the Spanish speaking countries in Latin America and all countries in Africa have no Apple Pay support whatsoever. Seeing as it is, it will be the biggest news when apple decides to roll out Apple Pay to Africa and the Spanish speaking Latin American markets (if they ever do, which is becoming extremely unlikely as time passes).
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On number 1) contactless infrastructure, I think apple only applies that rule outside the US (i.e., the law applies to my neighbor's cattle but not my own, as we commonly say in Mexico), because the US only had 3% contactless penetration back in 2014 when Apple Pay launched there. If rolling out Apple Pay depended on contactless infrastructure, clearly the US wasn't ready to get Apple Pay yet still got it just for being apple's home country. Meanwhile, many European countries that had nearly 100% contactless penetration even back in 2014 are just getting Apple Pay now.
Regarding Apple's apparent preference for certain countries and people when rolling out their services, just look at their list of supported countries for Apple Pay as an example. Tim Cook boasted last march that they will have more than 40 by the end of this year (and today they already reached the 40 country mark), but 27 out of those 40 countries are just in Europe (which will increase to 30 out of 40 by the end of this year), while only 13 including the US are in other regions of the world and two huge regions, Africa and Spanish speaking Latin America, don't have any countries supporting Apple Pay. That undoubtedly shows a marked preference for English speaking countries (usually the first to get everything) and for countries populated mostly by white people.
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Hungary has had nearly 100% contactless penetration for years, it was about time. They should have gotten Apple Pay long before the US, where contactless penetration was only 3% at the time Apple Pay launched (2014).
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But Apple does decide in which countries to go talk to the banks first, and they do show a marked preference for certain regions of the world. Just look at the list on apple's website: 27 out of 40 supported countries are located in Europe, while only 13 are scattered in other regions of the world and there are a couple of regions entirely free of Apple Pay. Not a very global rollout.
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I think this cannot be true. Counterexample: bunq. bunq is a Dutch bank that operates in multiple countries. (It only has a banking license in/from the Netherlands, but because of SEPA, Single European Payments Area, it can operate in multiple EU-countries.)
bunq supports Apple Pay since March 2018, but only in a few countries. It started in Italy and Spain and later other countries were added, Netherlands is still not one of them, but once ING has rolled it out and some exclusivity deal (that is my guess) expires, bunq will officially support Apple Pay in NL as well. I'm convinced it would be trivial for bunq to support Apple Pay for their users in all countries if Apple would allow it.
I'm not complaining, I think there could be valid reasons, why Apple would like to plan/control the roll-out, but Apple definitely has a big role to play here and it's not just the local banks.
Fun fact, the first day bunq supported Apple Pay in Spain and Italy, you could workaround the country limitation in a very simple way. If you changed the region of your Phone to Italy or Spain, you could activate Apple Pay and use it, even if you were not living in either one of those "allowed" countries. One day later this "loophole" was closed and a more elaborate workaround was necessary.
Netherland have a capped (domestic) interchange fee of 0.02 for debit cards. That is less than other European countries for transaction values of 10 EUR and over. And probably explains why credit card acceptance considerably lags behind the very wide debit card acceptance in the Netherlands.
bunq will probably have to pay Apple for Apple Pay a share of the cake.
And the size of that cake might just be smaller in the Netherlands than in other countries, when divided by number of customers. Or transactions, if bunq had to pay a per-transaction percentage/fee. Netherlands have one of the highest share of card payment among retail payments. So rather than an exclusivity deal, it might be a business decision by Dutch banks.
(In the case of ING, maybe, but this is just a guess, they have decided to absorb some of it themselves, in order to play front-runner, or Apple has cut them a special deal, to act as an "anchor" in the market)
I have waited for ApplePay in Thailand since it launched in 2014. Samsung Pay, Fitbit Pay, and Garmin Pay have been available for a while. I saw a map of those 40 countries and didn't notice Thailand as one of the countries in the roadmap for this year. So, I gave up hope. Just switched to Samsung with Samsung Pay on Note 9 and I'm pretty happy with it. I won't go back to iOS until Apple Pay is available here. (Hopefully before or the same time of Apple Store second branch opens)...
ING has released an Apple Pay commercial to Dutch site iCulture https://www.iculture.nl/nieuws/apple-pay-reclame-ing-gelekt/ and their updated terms and conditions go into force on June 1. Strong rumors now point to a launch date of June 4 for Apple Pay in The Netherlands. Don't know though if that launch would include other countries as well.
The banks should implement it, Apple Pay fights fraud, the downside is, it costs the retailers more to accept Apple Pay.
It doesn't have to cost the retailers more to accept Apple Pay unless they have to buy new equipment like they had to in the US, which was not the case in the many European countries where Apple Pay is just rolling out now after almost five years (those countries have had over 80% contactless penetration among merchants for nearly a decade and only took so long to get Apple Pay because of their banks).
Retailers don't pay their bank or payment service provider any fees specific to accepting Apple Pay, they only pay a fee (usually 3%) for accepting card payments regardless of whether the payment is submitted via chip, magstripe or NFC. The best proof that there is no additional cost for merchants to take Apple Pay is the fact that merchants in the 180+ countries not officially supporting Apple Pay are still able to accept it for payment just so long as they have working NFC contactless readers and honor the card network the customer is using to make the payment.
Apple does charge banks and other card issuers a fee per transaction for them to allow their customers to add their cards to Apple Pay, and the banks and card issuers in many countries have considered those fees to be too high. That's the real reason why they refuse to support Apple Pay and only relent to do so when customers start leaving because they don't support it. Some banks, such as those in the group called the Big Four in Australia, have also refused to support Apple Pay in the past because they were upset at not being able to access the NFC chip on iPhones for use with their own mobile wallet apps.
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IF Fitbit Pay and Garmin Pay are available in Thailand, that means there is a lot of contactless terminals out there. If so, Apple Pay should work fine in Thailand once it's been configured with a supported card from another country (or the Boon app). I have been using Apple Pay in Mexico that way since 2016. The lack of official support for Apple Pay in a country only means it can't be used with cards issued in that country, not that it can't be used at all in that country.
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I ordered a Monese card last Sunday and had it delivered today. Quite fast! I thought it would work with Apple Pay if I changed my iPhone's region to UK or any other country where Monese in Apple Pay is supported. However, to my dismay, it won't let me add it! Does anyone know why? I read from several people that this should work. Looks like I have no other choice but wait until Apple Pay is available here. BORING!!!
That's because Monese's branch in your country (which from your profile I see it's Portugal) doesn't yet support Apple Pay. The fact that a bank operating in several different countries with the same name supports Apple Pay in some of them doesn't mean it will also automatically support it in the others, branches in different countries operate as independently as if they were different companies and each will enable Apple Pay support for their issued cards at a different time. For example, HSBC operates in the US, UK, Canada and Mexico, but only supports Apple Pay for cards issued in the US, UK and Canada. And the same has happened with many other banks operating in more than one country with the same name such as Bunq, ING, BBVA, Santander or Scotiabank.
BTW you do have one other choice besides waiting for Apple Pay to launch in Portugal (which will happen soon anyway, as at least one bank there already announced it's coming soon): you can get the Boon app from a supported country's Appstore (I heard the Irish Boon app works well). Boon creates a virtual Mastercard debit card that you can add to Apple Pay and use anywhere NFC contactless payment is accepted. I heard some people in European countries successfully used Apple Pay like that while they waited for Apple Pay to come to their country officially.
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This is so annoying, this stupid waiting. The stupid Portuguese banks are to blame, yes, they have their own apps and in-app wallets and don't want to give in to Apple, but probably Apple only started talkings recently. It can't have been due to infrastructure because NFC payments have been around here for a long time now. I guess I'll rather wait a few more days since they say it's coming soon (even though they've been saying it since mid-April).
You are correct, it's not NFC infrastructure that delays Apple Pay rollout. In fact, when Apple Pay launched in the US back in 2014 only 3% of the merchants there accepted NFC contactless payment, whereas several European countries with nearly 100% NFC contactless acceptance either had to wait 3-4 more years to get it or, like yours, are still waiting even now almost five years later. If the banks don't want Apple Pay, that's usually because they think Apple's fees are too high and don't want to pay Apple. Furthermore, some banks are also upset because they can't have access to the NFC chip in iPhones and apple watches for their own apps and in-app wallets.
Fortunately, though, not having Apple Pay in a country only means it can't be set up with cards issued in that country, but it doesn't necessarily mean that Apple Pay can't be used at all in that country. Therefore, as I suggested before, you may want to try the Boon app if you want to use Apple Pay sooner. Once set up with a supported card, such as Boon's virtual Mastercard debit card, Apple Pay already works on contactless readers at Portuguese stores (or stores in any other officially unsupported country, for that matter).
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In the meantime I’ve found a more straightforward way to overcome this issue. Since Monese is a fintech based in the UK and all cards are issued there and then sent to customers either in the UK or abroad (to only a select group of countries), one just has to change its location in the Monese app to UK and enter a British address. Then it’s just a matter of changing the iPhone and Apple Watch location to UK and add the Monese card to the Wallet app. You can then revert back to your actual location and address and Apple Pay will remain enabled.
It’s working!
Oh ok, great. I thought your Monese card was issued in Portugal, in which case you'd have been out of luck, but if it was issued in the UK then it's different because the card would indeed be supported since Monese does support Apple Pay there. You're basically doing the same I did: use a card issued in a supported country. I set up Apple Pay with a supported US issued card and then I can use it in Mexico too. Have been using Apple Pay since 2016 in both the US and Mexico.
Enjoy using Apple Pay in Portugal!
Bank business is messy and complicated, and standards are also messy. I'm honestly impressed with their progress. Some people hate banks cause they "prey on" people with loans, I only hate them cause they're lame and behind.
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Well that's what happens when you have such regulated countries. China is special. I agree it's foolish to bet on entering China.
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