I just wanted to let you know guys that I used Apple Pay in Greece with my Lloyds bank Visa Debit card. I only asked to pay "contactless" in a supermarket. The employee at the till was expecting a card but when I put the phone next to the reader and it beeped okay everything went smoothly.

No problems at all, even though Apple Pay is not supported in Greece.
I guess it is just that Apple does not have any agreements with Greek banks for Apple Pay.
The transaction appeared as "contactless" on my bank statement.

I guess they are happy for any money they can get these days.

Everyone does, not just the Greeks.

The point is that the system supports Apple Pay (contactless) payments, so it is only a matter of Apple making the proper agreements with the banks within a country.

I know what the point was. I was making a joke about the state of the Greek Economy. Lighten up.

Got the joke. No worries at all

Just wanted to make sure that everyone understood my point.

As long as a terminal supports contactless then Apple Pay will work.

Unless you're in the US, it seems, where the retailer has neutered the contactless facility to stop you using Apple Pay or Android Pay, in favour of their own bastardised QR code based system, that just happens to cost them slightly less and provides the customer none of the same protection that a credit/debit card does.

Nothing new for them though, given how much of an ordeal they're making EMV out to be - forgetting that the rest of the world switched over with none of the same issues

Exactly. The deals with banks are just for the user who needs a bank to allow their account to be used for payment with the phone.

It doesn't surprise me the US had to mess things up!

Is not much of it to do with the cost of providing the service over there?

I know the likes of Aldi here used to ban credit cards because it impacted profit margins too heavily, that maybe being similar.

Not really. They take credit and debit cards, they'll take standard contactless, and they happily let you use Apple Pay until they launched their own awful solution.

It's all about getting a few % more cash since they don't have to pay it to the card companies, the banks, and Apple or Google (who get a very tiny percentage).

We're talking megacorps like Walmart here, not some tiny business.

The problem is that each retailer has their own phone payment solution, and it's a security risk as you link it to a bank account. Any fraudulent payments aren't protected like they are on a card, and you have Walmart deciding if they want to give it back or not.

I thought Google didn't actually get any payment unless it was an Android Pay certified terminal?

Barclays will support Apple Pay by mid April :

http://www.digitalspy.com/tech/apple...-by-mid-april/

About time! I think they might have panicked when the UK announcement was made last year and they realised they were the odd ones out. When Time Cook first introduced Apple Pay in 2014, something he said seems to describe bPay perfectly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNEPLTFzP7o&t=2m51s

Well I comfortably beat my previous record for purchase amount on Apple Pay the other day when I got a new retina MacBook at the Apple Store - just a shade under £1000 and just paid with my Apple Watch!

Which bit? having to watch at work so relying on auto-subtitles, but the user experience of bpay is excellent. The major drawbacks are that it is not integrated into existing devices (fine if you don't have a smartwatch/band anyway) and that it cost a relatively high amount to buy for one function. But in daily use? Simplicity itself.

bPay is just like putting the credit card on your wrist. Limited to £30 and has no security, just like the physical debit or credit card. Apple Pay and the Android versions work differently thanks to having software in the device.

The bit about creating their own business model. It seems like they were hoping to sell loads of stickers, key fobs etc to make profit. Apple Pay doesn't offer a new revenue source. But not supporting it is probably costing them customers

None of which makes any difference to the average user. Back to the old arguments on this thread about whether all of a sudden existing contactless cards are a massive security risk or not. (they're not)

Oh on this I totally agree, the marketing (and business model) for BPay is a disaster. The only people who know about it are disgruntled Apple users who want Apple Pay

Barclaycard have always dabbled with new stuff, whether it was building in Oyster cards to their cards or (alongside bpay) having their own mobile payments system. http://home.bt.com/tech-gadgets/tech...11364003857928

Sure, they're not, but the £20 (now £30) limit is the problem, and why the supermarkets never bothered to invest in contactless as somewhere over 80% of shoppers spend between £25 and £35 per visit.

ApplePay is just the best well known of an _active_ contactless solution, rather than an _inactive_ solution. I'm surprised we haven't seen a push for AndroidPay and/or SamsungPay in the last 6 months too.

Barclays Bank PLC incorporating Barclaycard is a schizophrenic organisation, and I've been a bank customer for over 25 years. The fact they 'play' with technology instead of rolling out for their customers is irritating. Compare how Barclays handle PAYM where you need their separate app (pingit) whereas the other banks implemented PAYM in the "pay someone" part of their online banking app, that previously only took account number/sort code.

There is someone senior in Barclays Bank PLC who thinks Banks are the industry leaders for technology; and no they can be a participant. I wouldn't be surprised if Barclays had a lot of customers say they would leave if they didn't do Apple Pay, especially when all the other big UK banks have (and are advertising it heavily).

Google have also utterly failed strategy-wise with Android Pay - why focus on one of the few countries that doesn't already use NFC payments? They've had Wallet/Pay in their portfolio for over 4 years, they should have beaten Apple to the UK but I'm not confident they'll even beat Samsung over here...

Samsung are obsessed with their acquisition of the fake mag stripe technology, which is likely only of interest to the US for a few transition years. They both seem to have missed the fact that only the US Is that backwards in payments

It'll be here before mid-April. The way Apple negotiate their contracts means they stick an exclusivity period in where it isn't allowed to be discussed, or marketed for some reason, and other competing platforms can't be launched at the same time.

That's why I said by mid April. If you read the article it says between 26th March and 10th April.