Last September, Apple introduced Apple Pay and partnered with a number of merchants and stores to roll out the service. Apple Pay has been one of the salient features of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus and is even integrated in the Apple Watch. The service was only available in the United States, with Apple planning a roll out in other markets around the world.
Apple is now extending the mobile payment service to the United Kingdom, the second country after the United States. Users will be able to tap their devices on payment points thus completing transactions in select merchant points. Transactions are however limited to transactions for items costing up to £20. Apple’s biggest selling point for its service is the ease of payments for as well as the offering of an extra layer of security through use of fingerprint recognition.
Apple Pay is a digital wallet that allows the users to integrate their debit and credit cards with Apple’s Passbook app, thereby allowing the users to make either physical payments in stores or online payments. Apple Pay uses NFC to allow for users to make these physical payments. Other than the fingerprint recognition software, Apple includes an extra layer of security referred to as tokenisation, that ensures the user information is not stored with the retailers. Apple has partnered with major banks in the United Kingdom including NatWest, Nationwide Building Society, Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC to offer support. Several retailers and stores are supporting the service among them Marks and Spencer, Post Office, BP, Costa Coffee, Starbucks, Nandos, KFC, Pret A Manger, Subway, McDonald’s
Source: Guardian
