Apple Pay to Launch in Norway, Poland, and Ukraine Soon

[MacRumors]

Apple is planning to expand Apple Pay to Norway, Poland, and Ukraine in the near future, Apple CEO Tim Cook said this afternoon during Apple's earnings call covering the second fiscal quarter of 2018.

Cook did not provide specific information on a potential launch date, beyond the announcement that it would be coming "in the next several months."

Cook said that Apple Pay continues to see strong growth, with the service setting a new all-time quarterly revenue record.

Apple Pay activations have doubled year over year, and total Apple Pay transactions have tripled. With launches for transportation services in countries like Japan, Apple Pay has seen significant growth. Cook said that Apple Pay is no the most successful mobile transit payment system in Toyko.

Over the course of the last few years, Apple has been working rapidly to expand Apple Pay to additional countries, and it is now available in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Singapore, Switzerland, Hong Kong, France, Russia, China, Japan, New Zealand, Spain, Taiwan, Ireland, Italy, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, UAE, and Brazil.

Article Link: Apple Pay to Launch in Norway, Poland, and Ukraine Soon

 

[sunapple]

So I live in this small country, you’ve probably never heard of it, which is called The Netherlands. Will I ever use Apple Pay? No idea. Where’s HomePod? Who knows. We do have three Apple Stores, so that’s nice.

 

[suea]

Ukrain???? They maybe have 5 card terminals and I think most of them don't even have NFC. In western Europe (germany, belgium, netherlands) for example you can pay using NFC at every store in the city, why should it take so long??

 

[Nozuka]

I don't think apple pay is having the impact it is supposed to. And to be honst, i never use it myself... even though it is technically a great thing. But i usually just hold my card to the NFC reader, which works just as well.. and doesn't look as geeky.

 

[ch1ptune]

So I live in this small country, you’ve probably never heard of it, which is called The Netherlands. Will I ever use Apple Pay? No idea. Where’s HomePod? Who knows. We do have three Apple Stores, so that’s nice.

Apple's launch strategies can seem.. arbitrary. Here I find myself in the even smaller country of Denmark, and we have Apple Pay but no Apple Stores. Also, we have Siri although she leaves something to be desired.

Happy for Norway to get Apple Pay. They are always the last to get everything

 

[IGI2]

POLAND!

Finally

 

[f0ku5]

POLAND!

Finally

+1

 

[ch1ptune]

I don't think apple pay is having the impact it is supposed to. And to be honst, i never use it myself... even though it is technically a great thing. But i usually just hold my card to the NFC reader, which works just as well.. and doesn't look as geeky.

Don't really get why you wouldn't be using it. Not meaning to be rude or anything. It's just that I use it ALL the time. It's so much easier (especially with the Watch), and I don't have to bring my cards, there's no limit (as there are with contactless payments), it's secure, fast and convenient. So yeah, I encourage you to give it another go

 

[Anakairos]

Ukrain???? They maybe have 5 card terminals and I think most of them don't even have NFC. In western Europe (germany, belgium, netherlands) for example you can pay using NFC at every store in the city, why should it take so long??

I don't know about Benelux, but in Germany?? Sorry, I live now 10 years in Poland and NFC is ubiquitous. You can even buy a ticket in a bus with NFC. In Germany to the contrary in many many shops or restaurants all you can do is pay cash or maybe with their own EC cards (pin and chip). So I totally understand Apple.

 

[Baerok]

Poland is ready! If my bank isn't supported on day one, I will definitely swtich. We were waiting for way too long now.

 

[IGI2]

I don't know about Benelux, but in Germany?? Sorry, I live now 10 years in Poland and NFC is ubiquitous. You can even buy a ticket in a bus with NFC. In Germany to the contrary in many many shops or restaurants all you can do is pay cash or maybe with their own EC cards (pin and chip). So I totally understand Apple.

Yup!

Poland is way more ahead in payment division than German, that's for sure.

 

[Heb1228]

This announcement is confusing to me. I just spent a week and a half in Lithuania & Finland, neither country is in the list, but I used my iPhone for 75% or more of transactions in both countries. Very few places that take cards don’t also take mobile payments.

So what would the difference be for a country to be added to the list? Does it go through a different system or something? Obviously iPhones can make mobile payments in countries that don’t yet have “Apple Pay.” ???

 

[IGI2]

Poland is ready! If my bank isn't supported on day one, I will definitely swtich. We were waiting for way too long now.

Similar approach buddy!
[doublepost=1525211398][/doublepost]

This announcement is confusing to me. (...)
So what would the difference be for a country to be added to the list? Does it go through a different system or something? Obviously iPhones can make mobile payments in countries that don’t yet have “Apple Pay.” ???

It's about banks and the country of the card issuer. When a UK citizen with Apple Pay visits Poland, he can pay in 99% of terminals and shops. However, you cannot (for now) add a Polish card to the Apple Pay. Hence, we say that there is no Apple Pay in Poland, because only tourists from countries with Apple Pay can pay using Apple Pay in Poland.

 

[suea]

I don't know about Benelux, but in Germany?? Sorry, I live now 10 years in Poland and NFC is ubiquitous. You can even buy a ticket in a bus with NFC. In Germany to the contrary in many many shops or restaurants all you can do is pay cash or maybe with their own EC cards (pin and chip). So I totally understand Apple.

Yeah you might be correct on Germany, but I've used Apple Pay in the Netherlands for a few months now and it works literately everywhere, I don't see a reason to wait.

 

[garethh]

So I live in this small country, you’ve probably never heard of it, which is called The Netherlands. Will I ever use Apple Pay? No idea. Where’s HomePod? Who knows. We do have three Apple Stores, so that’s nice.

I thought card payments in the Netherlands were really constrained with credit cards not accepted by day-to-day retailers (e.g. supermarkets), and similar for foreign debit cards? Maybe this is part of the problem? I paid with ApplePay there quite recently in about the only shop I found that accepted credit cards and there was much amazement. Although who gets ApplePay does seem a bit of a mystery at times.

 

[tmiw]

Apple loves Norway so much that they mentioned them twice.

(Yes, I'm well aware it's a typo but still.)

I don't think apple pay is having the impact it is supposed to. And to be honst, i never use it myself... even though it is technically a great thing. But i usually just hold my card to the NFC reader, which works just as well.. and doesn't look as geeky.

I think it depends on the country. I've seen a fair number of people in the UK pay with phones or other devices, for instance, while that's a lot less common in the US.

 

[iTom17]

So I live in this small country, you’ve probably never heard of it, which is called The Netherlands. Will I ever use Apple Pay? No idea. Where’s HomePod? Who knows. We do have three Apple Stores, so that’s nice.

Lucky enough I actually can use Apple Pay here in the Netherlands! Two words: Bunq and time.

Let's say I was just right on time to activate it some while ago.

But obviously I agree with everything you say.

I thought card payments in the Netherlands were really constrained with credit cards not accepted by day-to-day retailers (e.g. supermarkets), and similar for foreign debit cards? Maybe this is part of the problem? I paid with ApplePay there quite recently in about the only shop I found that accepted credit cards and there was much amazement. Although who gets ApplePay does seem a bit of a mystery at times.

Anywhere there's an NFC terminal Apple Pay is accepted in our country. I've been using it with Bunq (Maestro in fact, so not even Mastercard, VISA etc), works flawlessly!

 

[RobaxMan]

POLAND!

Finally

I just spent 2 weeks in Poland, used Apple Pay everywhere - bars, restaurants, tram tickets, taxis, even tapped a bank machine with Apple Pay to withdraw cash - the list is endless. The merchants are ready.

 

[iGeek2014]

I don't think apple pay is having the impact it is supposed to. And to be honst, i never use it myself... even though it is technically a great thing. But i usually just hold my card to the NFC reader, which works just as well.. and doesn't look as geeky.

Part of the problem for me here in the U.K. is the amount of places that still don’t have the infrastructure to accept Apple Pay over £30.

Granted there are more companies jumping on board but some of the bigger names are still quite reluctant for whatever reason.

I can understand your point in regards to contactless using a physical card but there are still a lot of customers out there who don’t trust it.

Nothing is ever 100% secure but knowing my card details are unlikely to be compromised using Apple Pay means I’d rather use it over a card/cash unless I had to.

 

[pymo4ka]

Ukrain???? They maybe have 5 card terminals and I think most of them don't even have NFC. In western Europe (germany, belgium, netherlands) for example you can pay using NFC at every store in the city, why should it take so long??

FYI the GPay works perfectly fine in our country for about 6 months now. On all of our 5 terminals without NFC support. The infrastructure of your country is just not ready for Apple Pay. Also you can be sure that APay will be launched in Belgium and Chechia shortly as GPay works there already. Oh BTW the way you were talking about my country only humiliates you. Don't be a jerk. Deal with it.

 

[Superhai]

So I live in this small country, you’ve probably never heard of it, which is called The Netherlands.

Netherlands you say, never heard of,… is it related to the netherworld maybe.

As far as I understand it is up to the banks whether they want to support Apple Pay or not on their issued cards. So if Apple are not able to get a deal with them, there will not be Apple Pay.

 

[Ernst Krenek]

Happy for Norway to get Apple Pay. They are always the last to get everything

Partly true I guess. The HomePod is unavailable. Apple Watch was released in the fall after US release. iPad in December 2010. iPhone not until 3G. On the other hand, nowadays Norway is without exception on the comparatively short list of countries (short compared to the number of countries in the world, at least!) to get iPhones on launch day.

I wonder if the delayed launch of Apple Pay in this country – where payment with debit card on terminals was standard payment at a time when the US still mostly used checks and taxi drivers in continental Europe would only accept hard cash – has to do with an extremely popular payment service called Vipps. You create a user on your telephone number and connect a payment card to it (all - literally, all - Norwegian banks large and small are connected). Any time you want to split a bill at a restaurant, want to pay back or collect any small or large sum of money to or from someone, want to contribute to a charity on a stand outside the grocery store or pay to enter your local school band’s lottery or pay at any flee market, buy a waffle or stay the night at one of the national hiking society’s mountain cabins, 3 out of 4 Norwegians use Vipps. You can connect and switch between any number of connected cards from any Norwegian bank. You can pay with it on web shops and in-app. You can pay bills with it if your creditor connects to the service. Your complete journey, by ferry, train, air, taxi can be payed using Vipps. You create a user group for all activities on your weekend trip or vacation and let the app calculate how much you owe each other as you add expenses over time. In short, you use it to shift money any time there would be no terminal involved, or you have the choice between the terminal and Vipps, or when the service provider has ditched the terminal altogether (that is, payment cards) and uses only Vipps (that is, your telephone number). Using it is free of charge. It is ubiquitous.

I haven’t touched cash in a decade and a half.

 

[twinlight]

Apple Pay in Norway. Did not expect that for 2018.

Will try adding my card every day now until it works.

 

[skliarevsky]

Ukrain???? They maybe have 5 card terminals and I think most of them don't even have NFC. In western Europe (germany, belgium, netherlands) for example you can pay using NFC at every store in the city, why should it take so long??

You might be surprised, but in some areas, Ukraine has much more modern payment services than the US.
For example, you can go with your NFC-equipped watch or wristband or something else through subway or tram turnstiles. Compare it to the Clipper card: it takes up to 5 business days to top up it with your credit card. In Ukraine, it takes 10 seconds to complete an inter-bank transfer with your smartphone.

 

[FatMax]

-snip-

No, Vipps is not the reason, BankAxept is.

The rest of Scandinavia has had services similar to Vipps and that has not stopped Apple from launching Apple Pay.