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Apple Pay Officially Launches in the United Kingdom Today

Pagemakers said:
TESCO? They are not on the list of Apple Pay retailers. You sure...
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Any retailer who accepts contactless payments accepts Apple Pay (up to the £20 limit). The card reader has no idea whether it's being presented with a contactless credit card or an iPhone, it just sees an RFID device.

The list of Apple Pay retailers is only relevant for purchases over £20, where you'd normally have to enter a PIN to complete the transaction - these retailers will have upgraded terminals which will allow authenticated transactions with Apple Pay (as opposed to the non-authenticated <£20 ones)
 
retrospek said:
So none of my cards will load including my business Amex and also my Tesco issued MasterCard (which I'm surprised about !)..
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At the moment Tesco credit cards won't support Apple Pay. This was the response that made me switch to Amex

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retrospek said:
BBC is now reporting on HSBC missing the Apple Pay launch:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33519365
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So HSBC through their own incompetence is being associated with failing to be ready for the deadline. Their image is being tarnished and rightly so. I'm sure this will have no material effect on HSBC, but when you spent a fortune on advertising to build up a positive Corporate profile, this kind of incompetence does not go unnoticed and rightly so!
 
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GreyOS said:
I've ordered a new contactless card as NatWest later advised me that I did need one for it to work. As they seem a bit confused and you seem clued up, I'll ask you! Will my new contactless card be 'offline' or are these two separate concepts and it's not guaranteed? Even if it's not guaranteed, do you think it's likely? Thanks.

P.S. It doesn't matter too much anyway as I just added my girlfriend's card. It all comes from the same account.
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My card isn't contactless and its in apple pay. I had it in iTunes anyway. Passbook added it automatically and a code was texted to me to confirm.
 
Zxxv said:
My card isn't contactless and its in apple pay. I had it in iTunes anyway. Passbook added it automatically and a code was texted to me to confirm.
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I know, it seems like the problem was my card was 'online' only. New card will be contactless, but will it be 'offline' (and therefore Apple Pay compatible). We'll see...
 
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Pret have confirmed that not only are they accepting ApplePay, they support transactions over the normal £20 contactless limit.

I wonder how many of the other named retailers are? This is the real differentiator to me.
 
retrospek said:
I'm really confused with all of this Wallet/Pass Book stuff.

So can I load in my Tesco Clubcard and Morrisions Match & More card etc. ? As that would be nice if I could..
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Only if Tesco/Morrisons allow you to store your loyalty card in Passbook (Wallet) via their app (and only if their tills have the ability to read it off your iPhone). This has nothing to do with Apple Pay though, it's part of the original functionality of Passbook.

There have been a couple of hacks to turn anything into a Passbook "card", not sure if they still work though, and ultimately if Tesco tills can't read your clubcard from Passbook, there's not a lot of point of hacking it onto there in the first place!

Hopefully, with Apple Pay taking off and raising the profile of Passbook/Wallet, more companies will take a greater interest in using the card/ticket storage facility.
 
I'm with NatWest, but am not getting the text message option for verification. Does anyone know roughly how long the wait is for telephone verification?
 
Just paid for my tube journey and then a coffee in Pret with my Amex card. Apple Watch not yet working...
 
retrospek said:
I'm really confused with all of this Wallet/Pass Book stuff.

So can I load in my Tesco Clubcard and Morrisions Match & More card etc. ? As that would be nice if I could..
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Unfortunately not yet... There's an app called Stocard where you can add your loyalty cards and it generates a barcode but not all checkouts have the right scanners just now to ditch the plastic.
 
When using your iPhone do you have to place your thumb over the Touch ID on the TFL NFC reader? I get off a very busy train in the morning for work and having to place your thumb on the fingerprint sensor will really make or break it as oyster cards are extremely quick (less than a second) which is essential as there are hundreds of people all trying to get through the gate.
 
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GadgetBen said:
True about the press release, but the Apple website did have HSBC on as a launch partner on the list of banks on the Apple website. Now they have changed HSBC to 'Coming Soon'. So either Apple have messed up with the details, or HSBC have messed up with the implementation here.
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Yes I agree. I have cards from three different banks and HSBC was the only one that Apple showed originally as a partner. I tried adding my HSBC card and it rejected with a list of banks that are available and HSBC was not among them. So much for my first attempt.
 
pojo1806 said:
So apparently I must have a basic account with RBS, what account do you need? One of those where they charge you like £11 a month for "insurance"?
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Speak to RBS about changing your Basic Account to a Select Account. There's no monthly charge for this and you'll get one of their Visa Debit cards which'll allow you to use Apple Pay.
 
JD92 said:
I'm sure RBS and First Direct will come fully online later today.

I suspect Santander's 123 credit card is intentionally being excluded from Apple Pay though. They're already talking about withdrawing it because its cash back levels were unsustainable given the new EU credit card fee limits - they won't want Apple eating in to their fee as well.
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Likewise with me. So easy to set up with my iPhone 6 and added my Visa card without any hassle to Apple Pay. Of cours like others here can't wait to try it out. Glad to know there is a limit of 20 quid for now until its security improve through time (bugs may happen) and its take up goes up too. I bet in a years time it (Apple Pay) will be seen as normal as taking out a credit card out of your wallet albeit with more security and anonymity too.
 
Just tried this in Starbucks, with an Amex card. Some cursory notes:

  1. It didn't work after two tries (even though it works contactless with the Amex card itself)
  2. I found it awkward to hold my thumb on the phone, while angling it onto the card machine. Feels like I'm about to drop my phone.
  3. The guy behind me in the queue was sighing heavily, I presumed because I was holding him up for a whole 30 seconds.
 
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cjbryce said:
This is exactly my question too.
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Of course it matters. It does not matter if you pay with an Amex card or Apple pay the transaction fee to the merchant from Amex will be the same. Since the reason most merchants do not accept AMEX is because of the higher transaction fee then nothing changes for them and that is why it will not be accepted.
 
GreyOS said:
I know, it seems like the problem was my card was 'online' only. New card will be contactless, but will it be 'offline' (and therefore Apple Pay compatible). We'll see...
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Yes, it'll be 'offline' and compatible with Apple Pay.

Contactless payments are seemingly conducted offline here in the UK (from what I can find online) whereas certain cards need to check the account at the time of payment.
 
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