When Apple Pay launched in the UK, there was one major holdout: Barclays. The company initially said only that it was in negotiation with Apple, later said that it would be going ahead but couldn’t say when, before stating that it would be sometime in “early 2016.” The bank has now provided more specific timing in an email reply to a customer.
We will launch Apple Pay, as committed, within the next 60-75 days.
Given that the email was dated 12th January (though only tweeted yesterday), that means Barclays will begin supporting Apple Pay sometime in March.
In the U.S., Apple added support for 50+ new banks and credit unions a few days ago, though usage appears to be lagging behind the matching growth in retail acceptance.
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I was so close of moving away from Barclays because of this… Even though I am still considering to change banks, I am happy they are finally giving in.
I also received an email from Ashok Vaswani in answer to my own query on the matter, but on 24th January in which he stated exactly the same “60 – 75 days”. Since this is a gap of 12 days, I would have expected my email to say, ’60 – 63 days’
The fact they were so slow to adopt Apple Pay makes me still want to leave… such a major bank taking this long is pretty bad, considering they spend so much time/money on keeping up with technology (great phone app and rubbish wrist bands…)