UK’s banks such as the Bank of Scotland, First Direct, Halifax, HSBC, Lloyds Bank, M&S Bank, MBNA, and Nationwide Building Society were already supporting Apple’s payment system. Barclays had been the biggest UK lender not to support the facility.
Barclays offers rival facilities of its own - including bPay and Pingit - but had faced pressure from some customers to support Apples effort.
However, Barclays said it had no plans to join Android Pay or Samsung Pay when they come to the UK later this year.
The reason for this lack of commitment to similar services for Android-based handsets and tablets can be explained by the fact that the bank already provides a way to take advantage of the devices NFC (near field communication) chips. In January this year they introduced a contactless mobile payment feature to the Barclaycard Android app that allows customers with an Android phone to make contactless payments.
Apple Pay allows debit and credit card details to be added to an iPhone, iPad and/or Apple Watch. The devices can subsequently stand in for the physical cards at contactless payment terminals. In addition, it can be used as a way to pay for goods within compatible apps without a user having to type in the linked cards three or four-digit security code.
What’s more, several of the smaller UK lenders that do not yet support the service have also indicated their desire to join. Metro Bank told the BBC it intended to join Apple Pay within a few months, while Virgin Money said it was looking into adopting it later.
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