Barclays becomes last big British bank to join Apple Pay
Barclays has become the last of Britain’s biggest banks to sign up for Apple Pay, nine months after the payments service launched.
Until now the bank had held off joining the platform in favour of developing its own bPay and Pingit facilities but finally bowed to pressure following a growing clamour from Apple device owning customers.
The system enables iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch owners to pair a debit or credit card with their device, allowing payments to be charged to it by swiping the gadget over a contactless payment terminal.
Barclays UK's chief executive Ashok Vaswani, said: “We are passionate about helping customers access services and carry out their day-to-day transactions in the way that suits them.
"Adding to the existing choice, from today both Barclays debit and Barclaycard credit card customers can use Apple Pay to make payments with their Apple device across the UK."
Barclays states that it has no plans to join rival services such as Android Pay or Samsung Pay, choosing to focus on the Barclaycard Android app instead.
Despite a wave of advertising Memo News reported that just 0.4 per cent of London commuters had made use of the service over the past six months.