Apple Pay launched in Singapore in April through a partnership with American Express, and at the time, the Apple Pay website in Singapore said Apple Pay would be available to Visa card holders and major banks in the near future.
Starting today, Apple Pay support is expanding beyond American Express. Apple Pay can now be used with major Visa, MasterCard, and American Express credit and debit cards from five of Singapore's major banks, including POSB, DBS, OCBC, Standard Chartered, and UOB.
According to The Straits Times, the five banks account for more than 80 percent of the Visa and MasterCard credit and debit cards issued in Singapore. Customers with an eligible card can add it to the Wallet app on the iPhone to make purchases within retail stores.
Apple Pay vice-president Jennifer Bailey told The Straits Times: "Now, almost everyone can leave their wallets at home. Apple Pay will be a natural extension of what users have been doing at payment counters."
Apple Pay can be used at more than 30,000 retail locations in Singapore that accept contactless payments, and Apple's Apple Pay Singapore website lists several official partners like Starbucks, FairPrice, BreadTalk, 7 Eleven, Toast Box, TopShop, Uniqlo and more.
Apple is working to bring additional banks on board to further expand Apple Pay support in the country.
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What Jennifer Bailey said about what they look our for, for Apple Pay expansion.
"The mobile payment service is available in six countries worldwide. Singapore was chosen as the first market in the region - outside of China - to roll out the service, something Apple executive Ms Jennifer Bailey said was partly due to "contactless acceptance" and penetration of debit and credit cards.
Said Ms Bailey: “There’s a number of things we look at from a market perspective, as we choose the timing of Apple Pay. The first is, do we have a lot of great iPhone and Apple Watch customers in the market since that is needed in order to use Apple Pay."
“The second is, the penetration of credit and debit cards," she added. "Singapore is a very popular market for credit and debit - over 78 per cent of the customers here prefer to use credit and debit cards over cash.
“And then the third factor is what we call contactless - which is the way the phone actually talks to the terminal to enable Apple Pay. So you have great contactless acceptance in Singapore as well.
“So all these factors - lots of iPhone customers, lots of contactless, and great credit and debit make it a great market for us.”"