Following the launch of Apple Pay in the UK two weeks ago, Apple is continuing the rollout with the addition of two major banks, HSBC and First Direct. Customers who have credit cards or debit cards with those banks can start using Apple Pay now. As with other UK Apple Pay transactions, there is a £20 transaction limit at most retailers apart from those with upgraded payment terminals that support higher-value contactless purchases. The £20 limit is getting raised to £30 in September.
Both HSBC and First Direct caused some controversy as they were initially advertised as launch partners for Apple Pay in the UK. When the launch came, though, the banks were mysteriously missing from the initial rollout.
Major UK bank Barclays remains mum on when it will support Apple Pay, apart from confirmation that it will support the feature ‘in future’. The Apple Pay page on Apple’s website also quotes the following banks as ‘coming soon’:
- Bank of Scotland
- Halifax
- Lloyds Bank
- M&S Bank
- TSB Bank
Apple Pay contactless NFC payments work with iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch. The latest iPads also support Apple Pay as a payment method within certain apps, but cannot do contactless retail transactions as they do not have an NFC chip inside.
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My question is, if you’re going to raise the limit on NFC purchases, why have it at all? Here in the US if it’s over $25 or $50 (at certain retailers), I just have to sign, which isn’t a big deal. Seems counterproductive to me. But hey, this is great for people who have those credit cards.
Simply put its down to the POS hardware – NFC/Contactless payment technology has been widely available in the UK for many years. But this was historically for contactless cards, which you just touched to the POS terminal. This was set up as as fast and convenient process – with the customer randomly every so often being forced to go chip-n-pin to enter their pin and reconfirm their identity. As such for security reasons a low transaction limit was imposed. There is already a plan to raise the limit for ALL contactless payments in UK in September – though this is unrelated to Applepay. It is this same hardware which Applepay is using now in the UK. However there will be new technology rolled in the future in the UK which fully support the tokenisation/security implicit within Applepay – at that time the transaction limit will be waived.
Ah, that makes sense. Here we’re just starting to get chip and sign and/or chip and pin.
I’m waiting for cards that are part of the HSBC Group… such as my John Lewis Partnership Card. John Lewis cannot tell me when it will be enabled and my attempt to add it this morning failed miserably.
I also noticed there is no visible comment on the HSBC website about this going live. My main bank was very forthcoming about this!
…still waiting! I’ve given up hope on my Barclaycard though.
Looks like it is currently just for Personal Customers as it is not working for HSBC Business Debit Cards. Same story with NatWest – no support for Business. Only one to support Business Customers as well is American Express. It’ll all happen with time :)
Yep, seeing the same thing here: was able to add a personal card but not a business one
Hopefully adoption and use will drive this forward as the banks seem like they are just testing the water at the moment. I think the big push will be when one of the big supermarkets (I know sainsburys is looking into it) raises or removes the limit with applepay but leaves it in place for cards. Once that happens I think there will be an explosion. I’m still loving the celebrity-like experience of paying with the watch lol and I’m seeking out shops that accept it (sad I know! – but it’s SOOO much fun)
It wasn’t easy for some customers. A few angry people on Twitter couldn’t register at first and some cards were instantly deactivated with the HSBC fraud department. It seemed like the Apple Pay registration triggered this response.
So some stores already have new terminals and therefore no £20 limit… but is there any way to tell which ones? Are official Apple Pay partners all upgraded for example? (so I could spend more than £20 in M&S?)
It’s all rather confusing at the moment.
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http://www.hsbc.co.uk/1/2/apple-pay gives the info on the HSBC website
Spent several hours talking to Apple helpdesk, very friendly and patient by the way, as the Apple Pay logo refused to appear in passbook… Backup and Restore to no avail (that takes a while I promise you!), potential faulty NFC chip in my iPhone 6? No…. I originally bought my phone in Holland, and although I changed my address to the UK and installed a UK credit card and the language to English in iTunes and obviously the entire Apple ID to the UK, the one thing I did not check was the SETTINGS -> GENERAL -> LANGUAGE & REGION where, you guessed it, the region was still set to The Netherlands. That check was not on the script of poor Adam the senior Apple technician, but at least I found it and 2 minutes later Apple Pay was fully working. Thank you HSBC……!
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