Barclays to join Apple Pay
Barclays, the last UK holdout against Apple Pay, confirms imminent launch
Barclays, the last of the UK’s big banks to join the Apple Pay bandwagon, has confirmed that it will be rolling out the service within the next three months, after initially holding out against the mobile payments juggernaut.
The big UK bank, which last month rolled out a HCE-based mobile payment service for Android phones, has been a reluctant stand out against the Apple Pay hype machine, instead launching its own range of wearables and jumping on board with the Zapp mobile commerce system from VocaLink.
While the UK launch of Apple Pay in July last year appeared to have caught some of the country’s biggest banks by surprise, with only Nationwide, NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank and Santander ready on day one, that number has since expanded to include all of the country’s major institutions bar Barclays.
Confirmation of Barclays’ imminent involvement has been confirmed in a tweet sent by Ashok Vaswarni, head of the bank’s personal and corporate banking division, in response to a customer query.
The news will bring small cheer to Apple, which is currently getting a hammering on the stock market over declining iPhone sales, and remains unable to crack the resistance of the Canadian and Australian banks, which remain steadfast in their determination to spurn the service.
Source: Finextra – Barclays, the last UK holdout against Apple Pay, confirms imminent launch
