Apple Pay

Apple Pay is now available in Iceland for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac users. In a somewhat-unexpected launch, Apple Pay is now live with Arion and Landsbankinn. If you have a credit or debit card with one of those banks, head to the Wallet app to add your card …

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Apple is working to streamline the Apple Pay Transit process for users, a new report suggests. Citing evidence found within iOS 12.3 code, the report explains that Apple is working is expanding the availability of the Apple Pay “Express Transit” feature to new card types.

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During its earnings call earlier this week, Apple touted the continued growth of Apple Pay and teased support for new apps and transit services this year. Now, the UK government has started accepted Apple Pay for some online payment services.

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Dutch bank ING has confirmed that Apple Pay is coming to the Netherlands ‘soon.’ The announcement was made on the company’s website.

Coming soon. Yes! ING is introducing Apple Pay.

The announcement continues …

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During Apple’s Q2 2019 earnings call this afternoon, Tim Cook revealed that Apple Pay will be expanding to more users this year. Cook revealed that Apple will come to MTA in New York, as well as Ticketmaster’s website and app.

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When we reported that JCPenney had stopped supporting Apple Pay, some European readers were confused about the state of Apple Pay in the US. Why did the chain need to specifically support Apple Pay when everywhere in Europe accepts it because it’s effectively just another contactless card?

A reader suggested I write an explainer, which I added to my to-do list only to find that CNBC did it for me in video form …

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As rumored, Apple Pay has indeed launched today in Austria. The supporting banks are Erste Sparkasse and N26, across Maestro, Mastercard, and Visa debit and credit cards. If you meet this criteria, open the Wallet app on your iPhone and press the Add button to start setting up Apple Pay. You may need to restart your phone to get the Wallet app to refresh.

Apple has announced that additional Austrian Apple Pay partners are ‘coming soon’, including Bank Austria, Boon, Edenred, Revolut, and VIMPay.

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Update: JCPenney told TechCrunch that it was unable to update its payment terminals to meet the latest requirements, so has switched off contactless functionality altogether. Read: it’s using old kit and can’t afford to replace it.

Department store giant JCPenney has dropped support for Apple Pay from both its retail stores, and its app.

The company’s Twitter support account confirmed the change over the weekend …

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Uber announced today that it is adding Apple Pay support to its food delivery Uber Eats service. While Apple Pay has been available in the Uber ride-sharing app for several years, it was notably missing from the Uber Eats counterpart.

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On Monday, I attended Apple’s very different kind of special event at Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park. There was no new hardware to unveil — new iPads, iMacs, and AirPods came the week before — so four new services took the show: Apple News+, Apple Card, Apple Arcade, and Apple TV+…

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While regular Apple Pay users tend to love the mobile wallet service, Apple so far hasn’t really hit mass-market adoption. Ironically, it seems a physical Apple Card could be the thing that changes that.

Absolute numbers for Apple Pay sound impressive. Tim Cook announced that there were over a billion Apple Pay transactions in Q3 of 2018, for example. It’s been estimated that around a third of iPhone users have activated it.

But if you look at usage in percentage terms, things look less rosy …

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The availability of Apple Pay at sporting events continues to expand today. Square has announced that it is partnering with the Washington Nationals to bring its Caviar Pickup service and Square Terminal platforms to Nationals Park for the 2019 Major League Baseball season.

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Several banks have between them announced that Apple Pay is coming to seven more European countries ‘soon.’

Bizarrely, Mobile bank N26 deleted the Facebook post in which it named five of the countries, but its Twitter accounts confirmed one of them and announced another, with those posts still up …

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Apple has quietly ended the the option of funding Apple Pay Cash balances from a credit card. The company made the low-key announcement on the same day it announced the Apple Card.

Previously, if you wanted to make a person-to-person payment via Apple Cash, and didn’t have sufficient balance, you could withdraw money from a linked credit card …

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Checking out in stores with your iPhone is easier than ever today, but paying bills with Apple Pay is still a challenge. Doxo is a bill payment service with a large database of billers, and they’re trying to tackle that problem with their latest iOS app.

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When I turned 18, one of the first things I did was sign up for a Best Buy store card. If I look at my credit report, it’s my longest running active card (which means I’ll never cancel it since it helps my credit report). Over the years, I’ve bought almost all of my electronic items there. I always take advantage of their free financing offers. A recent item I bought using this method was my HomePod. It came with six months of free financing. This financing offer was a huge part of the reason I picked it up when I did. While I had the cash, being able to pay for it over a few months was a huge consideration on when I purchased it. Recently, rumors are spreading of Apple and Goldman Sachs partnering for a new credit card. While Apple currently has a branded credit card with Barclays, I think this new partnership with Goldman Sachs could be a big win for consumers and for Apple. We don’t know all the details, but I hope they offer similar options to a true “Apple Store credit card”.

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The WSJ reported last week that Apple is partnering with Goldman Sachs to launch a new credit card later in the year.

The new credit card will integrate with the Apple Wallet app on the iPhone to offer special features like the ability to set spending goals and track purchase rewards. The card would purportedly offer rewards like 2% cashback, and maybe more when buying Apple gear.

The paper has more today on Apple’s choice of partner …

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Apple and Goldman Sachs are readying a joint credit card, according to the Wall Street Journal. The new credit card will integrate with the Apple Wallet app on the iPhone to offer special features like the ability to set spending goals and track purchase rewards. The card would purportedly offer rewards like 2% cashback, and maybe more when buying Apple gear.

The report says the new card will be tested with employees in the next month or so with a launch later in the year. The Wallet app has undergone a significant design change in the iOS 12.2 beta, so it makes sense that Apple has bigger plans in the offing.

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