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The democracy in Poland might be fresh, but so are the underlying banking systems that were developed throughout the 90's and 00's, which is why it's rolling out here right now.
The mobile payment infrastructure is exceptionally well developed, NFC terminals are in buses in some cities and I have yet to see a vendor that doesn't support contactless payments. It made absolute sense to finally launch it in Poland.
I don't know what the situation in Germany is right now, but my German and English friends are shocked how well developed the banking websites and apps are compared to the ones they use with their local banks.

Same thing here in Czech republic, you can buy a bus ticket using NFC card in a lot of cities now. Hope we will get Apple Pay soon too.
 
How about spreading a little less cynicism on this forum? They don’t want anything but rolling out Apple Pay in as many countries as possible, as soon as possible. Given your information I’m sure they will be rolling out soon over there, just be a little more patient and be a little grateful you’re not living in my place.
I agree.
If it were up to Apple I am sure they'd flood the global market.

The villains in this case are the local banks. Some are genuinely archaic in their thinking.

But frustrating nonetheless.
 
I agree.
If it were up to Apple I am sure they'd flood the global market.

The villains in this case are the local banks. Some are genuinely archaic in their thinking.

But frustrating nonetheless.
I don't believe this is the whole story at least in Belgium (2 of the major banks) said like 3 times that Apple Pay rollout was coming soon. There has to be something else slowing down the process.
 
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I agree.
If it were up to Apple I am sure they'd flood the global market.

The villains in this case are the local banks. Some are genuinely archaic in their thinking.

But frustrating nonetheless.

I heard that AP adoption in Poland was delayed not because of bank's archaic thinking but rather lack of willingness to give a part of their profits to Apple. Actually I'm quite surprised that they reached an agreement.

ps. I've just tested and can confirm that Apple Pay in Poland works :).
 
It all comes down to deals. Just like Ingenico wants a slice off every card transaction, Apple wants a slice as well and I bet it‘s not a small one.
If I was Apple, I‘d just create a bank of my own.
 
Don’t get Apple’s priorities. Apple Pay in Brazil and Mexico before so many Western European countries? Is this for real? How big is Apple’s business in Brazil, Mexico and other developing countries? I don’t think many people can afford Apple’s overpriced products there. Like 0,001% of the population is going to use Apple Pay. Great... Next we’ll see the HomePod launching in North Korea.
 
Don’t get Apple’s priorities. Apple Pay in Brazil and Mexico before so many Western European countries? Is this for real? How big is Apple’s business in Brazil, Mexico and other developing countries? I don’t think many people can afford Apple’s overpriced products there. Like 0,001% of the population is going to use Apple Pay. Great... Next we’ll see the HomePod launching in North Korea.

Actually, a significant number of people in Mexico have iPhones from what I've observed in my visits there. The bigger problem is that there simply isn't enough contactless infrastructure there (and no ready-made excuse to roll such infrastructure out, like there was in the US with the EMV migration*), so it's a lot more difficult to justify Apple Pay right now. Heck, Samsung Pay only got there recently and that's because it supports MST.

Also fun fact: you're generally not allowed to touch the terminal in Mexico unless a PIN's required for your card. Even the PIN pads attached to POSes (vs. standalone terminals) are on the cashier's side of the counter. I'm not sure why, though, and I didn't know enough Spanish to ask the store clerks.

*And even then, I'm not sure the US should have gotten Apple Pay first. That's a whole other discussion, however.
 
Same thing here in Czech republic, you can buy a bus ticket using NFC card in a lot of cities now. Hope we will get Apple Pay soon too.
I know, I've only just recently traveled to Czechia and the terminals are just as ubiquitous as in Poland. Keeping my fingers crossed for a card-less future for you guys! ;)
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Mister Breivik will be proud :D
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Yes I do, but I do not consider economy as science. So don’t expect me to take that serious.

Don't take it SERIOUSLY then and while you're at it stop invoking terrorist names for the sake of your petulant, troll sense of humor.
 
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No problem in the Netherlands, it works well in buses.

The payment process takes like half a second.

That's not how NFC works, the reading is almost instantenous. I would wager it's much easier that trying to insert the same card into a slot while the bus is crowded and moving.

I love how there's three people mansplaining how my experience isn't valid. Yes, the reading is reasonably fast, but navigating the UI (which for some reason they had to change significantly, and make more complicated) is not. No, you don't need to hold your card the entire time, but how is a user supposed to know that?
 
I love how there's three people mansplaining how my experience isn't valid. Yes, the reading is reasonably fast, but navigating the UI (which for some reason they had to change significantly, and make more complicated) is not.
In Poland the experience hasn't changed from standard card readers - you select a ticket with buttons or touchscreen, pick a payment method (if available, you may pay both with cash and card, including inserting the card into a slot, in some cities) and pay. And it's actually easier to pay with NFC as you don't have to stick your card into a reader and enter the PIN while the bus is moving.
No, you don't need to hold your card the entire time, but how is a user supposed to know that?
Because if the user has contactless card (and in Poland most people have them as banks don't issue older cards anymore since like 2011), then he knows how to do pay with that. I have literally never seen a person that doesn't know how to pay with NFC debit card here. And the card reader has both visual and sound feedback after the transaction was done.
 
Where do you live?
It’s indeed quite annoying that the rollout is this slow, I kinda knew that it was going to be slow but at least I expected 30-40 countries having Apple Pay by now.
It is not necessarily Apple who is slow but the banks. Apple Pay works perfectly well in Germany, just not with German bank accounts.
 
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Today I was the second customer in a local restaurant (Katowice, Poland) to pay with the use of Apple Pay. The first client did use his watch. I didn't know how (and still don't) to make it work, so I ended up using my iPhone.

The waitress was genuinely surprised I was able to pay contactlessly without the need to enter a PIN code for a transaction above 50 Polish Zlotys ~ $13,50).

I was surprised the procedure is not intuitive enough for me to have figured up how to pay with the use of Apple Watch. :/

EDIT: Problem solved. I had to add the same card on my Watch (or rather Watch app on my iPhone) separately despite having it added on my iPhone.
 

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I just switched banks just because of Apple Pay. Bank Millenium is a great bank here, but they still haven't joined the Google Pay and Apple Pay revolution - good-bye to them. mBank it is!
 
It is not necessarily Apple who is slow but the banks. Apple Pay works perfectly well in Germany, just not with German bank accounts.
This is not true at all. Apple is clearly the bottleneck in this case. Or do you think all Polish banks all of a sudden decided together to support Apple Pay? Does that make sense?
 
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This is not true at all. Apple is clearly the bottleneck in this case. Or do you think all Polish banks all of a sudden decided together to support Apple Pay? Does that make sense?
Apple will go live in a country once enough banks have signed up so Apple Pay covers a reasonable percentage of clients. They won't go live with only potential for a few clients. Once they have that critical mass together, of course they all go live at the same time. Other banks will for sure join later.
 
Today I was the second customer in a local restaurant (Katowice, Poland) to pay with the use of Apple Pay. The first client did use his watch. I didn't know how (and still don't) to make it work, so I ended up using my iPhone.

The waitress was genuinely surprised I was able to pay contactlessly without the need to enter a PIN code for a transaction above 50 Polish Zlotys ~ $13,50).

I was surprised the procedure is not intuitive enough for me to have figured up how to pay with the use of Apple Watch. :/

EDIT: Problem solved. I had to add the same card on my Watch (or rather Watch app on my iPhone) separately despite having it added on my iPhone.

For security reasons the cards are not synced between devices, which I think makes sense.
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I just switched banks just because of Apple Pay. Bank Millenium is a great bank here, but they still haven't joined the Google Pay and Apple Pay revolution - good-bye to them. mBank it is!

This is not true at all. Apple is clearly the bottleneck in this case. Or do you think all Polish banks all of a sudden decided together to support Apple Pay? Does that make sense?

Why would Apple delay deploying Apple Pay in Germany? They make money out of it. Commission from every transfer. If you don't think this is the banks trying to pay less to Apple you are crazy.
 
Apple Pay - checked
Apple Pay Cash - ANOTHER 4 YEARS?

That's the real question here now.
 
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A couple of findings after using Apple Pay on my watch today in Warsaw, PL. First, when I tried to pay for petrol at BP gas station, the terminal accepted the card, but it gave me a choice between Polish Zloty and USD despite the fact, that the card is linked to PLN account and the transaction was in PLN. The clerk was confused as much as I was, but after selecting PLN the rest was OK even without the need to enter PIN regardless the amount of transaction was by far higher than Polish banks limit for wireless (NFC) purchases. Second, when i tried to pay for medicines in farmacy some minutes later, the transaction was not successful with the message on the watch that I have to wait some more minutes. Is there a mandatory interval between Apple Pay payments?

I use NFC payments for long time already, but it is really nice to be able to pay with your wirst without even taking your real vallet out from your pocket.
 
Don’t get Apple’s priorities. Apple Pay in Brazil and Mexico before so many Western European countries? Is this for real? How big is Apple’s business in Brazil, Mexico and other developing countries? I don’t think many people can afford Apple’s overpriced products there. Like 0,001% of the population is going to use Apple Pay. Great... Next we’ll see the HomePod launching in North Korea.
Though it works unofficially in the country (once set up with a supported card from another country), Apple Pay is not yet available in Mexico. It's only in Brazil that it's available. Nonetheless, it's interesting that Apple gets all the bashing for a slow rollout of Apple Pay when their competitors Google and Samsung have been even slower to rollout Google Pay and Samsung Pay.
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Actually, a significant number of people in Mexico have iPhones from what I've observed in my visits there. The bigger problem is that there simply isn't enough contactless infrastructure there (and no ready-made excuse to roll such infrastructure out, like there was in the US with the EMV migration*), so it's a lot more difficult to justify Apple Pay right now. Heck, Samsung Pay only got there recently and that's because it supports MST.

Also fun fact: you're generally not allowed to touch the terminal in Mexico unless a PIN's required for your card. Even the PIN pads attached to POSes (vs. standalone terminals) are on the cashier's side of the counter. I'm not sure why, though, and I didn't know enough Spanish to ask the store clerks.

*And even then, I'm not sure the US should have gotten Apple Pay first. That's a whole other discussion, however.

As a matter of fact there is just as much contactless infrastructure in Mexico as in the US, perhaps even more since magnetic stripe readers were completely abandoned when the country migrated to EMV long before the US even started to do so. Most of the merchants that accept credit and debit cards in Mexico nowadays use standalone terminals that are usually nfc enabled, and the only places that are definitely unable to accept contactless payment are the big retailers that have pinpads attached to their POS systems, but that's just because they deliberately decided or were instructed by the bank to keep the NFC reader turned off on those pinpads and only use the chip and magnetic stripe readers. As an example of this, I can pay with Apple Pay at more sit down restaurants and gas stations in Mexico than in the US despite that Apple Pay launched there four years ago and hasn't launched in Mexico. Not to mention hotels and even government offices (I have actually made payments using Apple Pay at CFE, the country's single electricity provider owned and operated by the government, several times). I can tell you all that after having used Apple Pay regularly in the country for over two years (set up with a US card, of course, since Apple Pay hasn't officially launched in Mexico yet). The main problem in Mexico is the people: even now that Samsung Pay has launched in the country, most of the cashiers are still unaware that their terminals are able to accept contactless payment, let alone know how to handle those payments.

Also, fun fact: people in Mexico are more friendly than in other countries. If you explain the cashier that you want to pay with your phone (they kinda get that now with Samsung Pay), they are usually willing to let you try. Many times they have even let me start the sale since they didn't know how and I had told them beforehand that I did know, and then I showed them how to do it.
 
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The rollout in Sweden is pretty much non-existent since only one bank supports it after over one year of availability. Laughable indeed.
 
The rollout in Sweden is pretty much non-existent since only one bank supports it after over one year of availability. Laughable indeed.
At least over there Apple Pay was officially launched. In Mexico it hasn't been launched yet and, after four years waiting, it is most likely that it never will.
 
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