Apple Pay Officially Launches in the United Kingdom Today

[kdarling]

Which makes it interesting as to why some specific retailers are being advertised on the apple website as supporting applepay, yet actually just have standard contactless terminals.

Why are some retailers listed, and others not, when it is nothing to do with actually supporting (limitless) applepay?

Apple uses retail "Apple Pay partner" more for marketing than anything else.

It can simply mean the merchant has contactless terminals, updated or not for limits. Or it can mean they added Apple Pay as an option to their own iPhone merchant app. Or a combo.

It's often Apple Marketing's way of getting people to associate generic store updates with Apple Pay, and it seems to work.

If your using the London underground does it charge you every time you scan your iPhone or does it know you have already paid?

The system simply records your touch-in and touch-outs all day. At the end of the day, matching taps (or single ones for buses/trams) are used to calculate individual fares. Then all the fares for the day are totaled up and charged to your credit card.

If there are missing matches... such as might happen if you touched in with one card/device and touched out with a different card/device, or if you simply failed to touch out... they might wait a few days to see if their records need to catch up. After that, they assume you missed a touch and charge full price.

 

[sam3020]

That's awesome. Clever system

Apple uses retail "Apple Pay partner" more for marketing than anything else.

It can simply mean the merchant has contactless terminals, updated or not for limits. Or it can mean they added Apple Pay as an option to their own iPhone merchant app. Or a combo.

It's often Apple Marketing's way of getting people to associate generic store updates with Apple Pay, and it seems to work.



The system simply records your touch-in and touch-outs all day. At the end of the day, matching taps (or single ones for buses/trams) are used to calculate individual fares. Then all the fares for the day are totaled up and charged to your credit card.

If there are missing matches... such as might happen if you touched in with one card/device and touched out with a different card/device, or if you simply failed to touch out... they might wait a few days to see if their records need to catch up. After that, they assume you missed a touch and charge full price.

 

[eish2306]

Silly, we don't have sewer alligators! That's New Orleans. NYC has rodents of unusual size in the subways though.

Fry would disagree

 

[jannette]

So, has anyone made a purchase for over £20 yet?

 

[SimonCarbon]

Tried to pay with my watch in WH Smith today - it failed. Tried again with my contactless Amex card (which is registered with Apple Pay) and that failed too so I guess this could be an Amex thing in this case. I've heard contactless Amex isn't accepted in that many places.

 

[reclusive46]

Tried to pay with my watch in WH Smith today - it failed. Tried again with my contactless Amex card (which is registered with Apple Pay) and that failed too so I guess this could be an Amex thing in this case. I've heard contactless Amex isn't accepted in that many places.

Yeah Amex contactless isn't accepted in WHSMITH.

The weird thing though is that Amex with Apple pay doesn't even work in some places that take Amex contactless like the Co-op or McDonalds.

 

[jannette]

Tried to pay with my watch in WH Smith today - it failed. Tried again with my contactless Amex card (which is registered with Apple Pay) and that failed too so I guess this could be an Amex thing in this case. I've heard contactless Amex isn't accepted in that many places.

Oh! I have used Amex with Apple Pay on my watch in a variety of shops. I think that lots of shops do not take Amex....were you able to pay with your Amex by inserting the card into the reader and entering your pin?

 

[SimonCarbon]

Oh! I have used Amex with Apple Pay on my watch in a variety of shops. I think that lots of shops do not take Amex....were you able to pay with your Amex by inserting the card into the reader and entering your pin?

I gave up on the Amex at that point and waved my HSBC debit card in front of the reader - job done. I only use the Amex card occasionally now but registered it with Apple Pay until HSBC get their act together and let me register my debit card.

 

[Benjamin Frost]

So, has anyone made a purchase for over £20 yet?

Yes.

Not with Apple Pay, though.

 

[Fried_Gold]

My new RBS card arrived just now, added and verified with Apple Pay within minutes! Not got my PIN number yet, wonder if it will still work.. I know sometimes you need to use your PIN once to activate contactless pay.

 

[8012R3]

Used  Pay on Tuesday. It's now Friday and I can't see my transaction in my nationwide account yet. Available balance has been adjusted though.

 

[sam3020]

My new RBS card arrived just now, added and verified with Apple Pay within minutes! Not got my PIN number yet, wonder if it will still work.. I know sometimes you need to use your PIN once to activate contactless pay.

No you shouldn't need to. I'm using Apple pay on my new nationwide account and have never used the card for anything else

 

[JD92]

Something a little different for your guys

 

[AppleFanBoy82]

Something a little different for your guys

where that card from and who does it

 

[bigchrisfgb]

where that card from and who does it

It's from a bank that RBS own that was traditionally for those with large amounts of money and assets. The branding remains but it is effectively just another branch of RBS now.

 

[Jeandre]

Any word from Barclays?

 

[JD92]

where that card from and who does it

It's from a bank that RBS own that was traditionally for those with large amounts of money and assets. The branding remains but it is effectively just another branch of RBS now.

Indeed! It's just an RBS account, but you get a different debit card and cheque book with it. I think they like you to think that you need to be wealthy to get it, but if you open an RBS account and specify when asked that you'd like your account held at branch 15-80-00 then anyone can get it. Just to clarify - I am a student and most definitely not a high net-worth individual

I wonder if people who have the gold Santander Select debit cards also have a gold card shown in their Apple Pay wallets.

 

[Manatlt]

Any word from Barclays?

Barclays won't get Apple Pay anytime soon, definitely not this month. Probably autumn.

 

[GadgetBen]

Several users now reporting on Twitter that they can register HSBC cards with Apple Pay but I still can't, despite having a contactless card. I am wondering if its because I am on iOS 9 public beta?

Have people with the other participating UK banks successfully registered and used Apple Pay on the public beta?

 

[dbrose]

It's about time

 

[dbrose]

Looks HSBC First Direct are both live

 

[jacobj]

I was wrong about HSBC

 

[dbrose]

My choices just increased two fold

This is running iOS 9 beta 4. The iOS version is irrelevant.

 

[GadgetBen]

Just tried a few HSBC cards and for nothing. It just said to contact my card provider. I really don't expect HSBC to get this right though. They have no real commitment to their retail customers, so we shouldn't expect this to be a priority. Honestly I can imagine the internal conversations and this is background noise to their senior team: nothing more.

Are you on iOS 9?

 

[jacobj]

Are you on iOS 9?

No. Just tried again and have been proved completely wrong. It worked this time. I manually entered the details though, rather than relying on the scan.