Apple Pay has reached the UK. This is what you need to know!
After rolling out in the US in October, Apple Pay has finally made its way to the UK. We believe this will be much bigger in the UK as contactless reader are much more common in the UK than the US. Although we have been anxiously awaiting its arrival we are fully anticipating that a lot of people don't know what to expect. I am going to try and make this easier and split this into two parts, Consumers and Businesses.
1. If you are a consumer and you want to use Pay in a shop you will need to know a few things:
You will need either an iPhone 6, 6 plus or an Watch
(The iPad Air 2 and the iPad Mini 3 only work online through the web or through apps.). If you have one or more things you can move on to the next step.
You have to have a bank account that supports Pay.
Banks supported As of July 14th are;
- American express,
- Mbna,
- Nationwide,
- NatWest,
- Royal Bank of Scotland,
- Santander
- Ulster Bank
Supported but Coming soon are;
- Bank of Scotland
- First Direct
- Halifax
- HSBC
- Lloyds
- M&S
- TSB.
You need to be spending less than £20.
As of July 14th, there is a limit on contactless payments that is £20 however this expected to rise over time to £40 and potentially higher.
You Can Use Pay anywhere that you use a contactless card.
Apple announced a group of places you would be able to use Pay but that didn’t limit it. We went to our local shop that happens to have a contactless reader and to the surprise of the shop keeper, we managed to pay with an iPhone.
You can set Pay up in a few minutes.
Open PassBook, Add a card, Scan your Card, add the security code verify it by text or a phone call and boom! You’re done. Even the scan took only 2-3 seconds to work. Seamless! If you already use your card for your apple ID then you don't even need to scan it.
It is quick and hassle-free.
You literally have to just hold your phone over the reader and Pay will light up on the screen and all you have to do is scan your fingerprint using touch ID. The whole process took about 3 seconds.
2. If you are a business owner and your confused about whether you can get Pay in your business here is what you need to know:
If you take contactless payments, you already accept Pay.
People who have set up apple pay on their devices can use Pay easily
You might need to let your staff know what is going on.
The girl on the till had no idea what we were doing.
If you want to use Pay, get a contactless card reader.
As Any NFC reader works this is all you need.
You can get decals to advertise to the world that they can pay in your shop via Pay.
Go to https://www.applepaysupplies.com/applepaykit.html and order a free kit!