New payment technology Apple Pay is now live in Britain. From today, UK cardholders who bank with MBNA, RBS, Santander and Nationwide will be able to upload their cards to their phone and use the system. Customers from HSBC, Lloyds and TSB will also be able to use the service in the next coming months.
The launch comes after Visa Europe predicted that daily mobile payments will triple and the amount spent will surpass £1.2 billion a week by 2020. It also announced that nearly half of UK consumers want to use their mobile to pay contactless in stores and last week it was announced that 1 billion contactless payments had been made in the last year across Europe.
Apple Pay is compatible with any of the 2.6 million contactless terminals in Europe and there is no spend limit on upgraded terminals using Touch ID to verify the cardholder.
At launch, only a few businesses are accepting high value payments (greater than £20) although retailers can choose to accept high value payments by upgrading the software on their terminals. By the end of the year 80% of terminals are predicted to be able to accept these high-value transactions.
