Apple told us during WWDC that Apple Pay – its contactless payment system for iPhone 6, 6 Plus and Apple Watch – would launch in the UK this month. And guess what? It has! Today.
It’s supported by Bank of Scotland, Halifax, Ulster Bank, NatWest, American Express, Santander, Royal Bank of Scotland, Nationwide, First Direct, TSB, MBNA and Lloyds Bank.
HSBC was also listed as a launch partner on Apple’s website, but was removed from the list overnight. While this indicates a last-minute change of plan, HSBC insists to us that its intention all along was to go live later this month. It issued a statement saying, “We’re working hard to bring Apple Pay to HSBC and first direct customers, and they’ll be able to use it later in July.”
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Retailers that’ll let you pay with the service include Boots, Costa Coffee, Marks & Spencer and Waitrose, as well as Transport For London.
The Telegraph — Apple’s news outlet of choice for making announcements in the UK — has run an article replete with pictures of Apple Pay, and a video on how it works.
Some users are reporting they can add cards to Passbook for use in Apple Pay, but it seems some are switching regions to the US to do so (Settings>General>Language and Regions).
Our Matt Navarra didn’t have any issues adding his cards using that method, and says the cards will remain in Passbook once you switch settings back to the UK.
Update: In addition, Barclays, which has previously been silent on the issue of Apple Pay, has said that its customers will be able to use Apple’s new platform in the future.
We are really excited about the launch of Apple Pay and will bring Barclays debit cards and Barclaycard credit cards to Apple Pay in future.
— Barclays UK (@BarclaysUK) July 14, 2015
Update: Braintree announced it has made Apple Pay available as a payment option, via its v.zero SDK. Some of the first merchants to enable the payment option via Braintree include Hungryhouse, Hailo, Just Park, YPlan, Barpass, Top10, Bizzby, Mr &Mrs Smith, StubHub, and HotelTonight.
Update: Adyen has said it’s also adding support for companies to make Apple Pay available as an option for their customers. River Island, JD Sports, JUST EAT, Pologram, Takeaway.com, TravelBird and Vueling are among the first to support it through Adyen.
Read next: Apple’s watchOS 2 may make your current Apple Watch stand obsolete
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