As expected, Apple used the opening keynote of WWDC 2016 to officially announce that Apple Pay is expanding into three more regions. As part of a partnership with new banks, Apple’s contactless mobile payment platform is now confirmed to be launching in Switzerland, France and Hong Kong, meaning that not only will Apple Pay be soon available in 9 countries in total, but this announcement makes Switzerland and France only the second and third European countries to fly the flag for Apple Pay alongside the United Kingdom.
Originally launched back in 2014 in the United States, Apple Pay is already available in Canada, Australia, China, and Singapore.
Support for Apple Pay in Switzerland, France and Hong Kong has been expected for a while now, meaning that it shouldn’t exactly come as a huge surprise to Apple users in those regions. A German source had earlier reported that Apple Pay would launch on June 13th in Switzerland. Before that, there was another report that said Apple Pay support for France will be announced at WWDC. And as we know now, both of those reports turned out as correct.
While the exact launch date in still not confirmed, but whenever Apple flips the switch on Apple Pay in the aforementioned countries, users will be able to add compatible credit and debit cards to stock Wallet app on their iPhones, iPad, Macs (in macOS Sierra) and Apple Watches in order to pay for goods and services using the Apple Pay platform.
Of course, acceptance of that payment method will also depend on the physical or online retailer, and whether or not the physical store is capable of accepting contactless payments via their terminals. Users will also need to have a compatible Apple device, such as an iPhone 6/6s or 6 Plus/6s Plus or SE, or an Apple Watch, or soon, Macs with macOS Sierra.
This announcement comes not long after Apple Pay head Jennifer Bailey claimed that the company was “working rapidly” to try and expand the service to all regions where the company currently has operations. In order to go through that level of expansion, Apple will of course need partnerships in place with banking and financial institutions in any country that it wishes to make Apple Pay accessible.
Apple already has partnerships in place with the likes of VISA, MasterCard and American Express in certain territories, so it’s likely it will leverage those existing relationship to expand to additional countries as quickly as it possibly can.
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