Walmart Subsidiary Asda Testing Apple Pay in U.K.

While its parent company Walmart remains one of the most notable Apple Pay holdouts in the United States, British supermarket chain Asda now appears to be testing the mobile payments service at select locations in the United Kingdom.

ASDA
The supermarket chain, which has 626 stores across the U.K., recently confirmed on Twitter that Apple Pay is something it is "currently trialling in a few of our stores," but it remains unclear if the testing will lead to a wider rollout in the future.

A few Asda customers have recently tweeted about the newly enabled Apple Pay support at superstore locations in Aberdeen, Scotland and Ferring, a small village located about 60 miles southwest from London, England.

As recently as August 12, a support representative tweeted that Asda does not currently accept Apple Pay, but that it does accept contactless payments in some of its stores. Apple Pay generally works where contactless payments are accepted, but some retailers have specific policies against accepting Apple Pay.

In 1999, Asda was purchased by Walmart, which recently completed a nationwide launch of its own QR code-based mobile payments solution Walmart Pay in the United States. Walmart was initially committed to the Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) consortium and its now indefinitely postponed payments service CurrentC.

In related news, Clydesdale Bank, Yorkshire Bank, and digital banking service B introduced Apple Pay support for cardholders in the U.K. last week.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay
Tag: Walmart

Top Rated Comments

bbfc Avatar
111 months ago
What does ASDA stand for? Is this an acronym or is that a real word that means something to the british people? Because I am only aware of the American Sleep Disorder Association. And hopefully these stores don't put people to sleep :D
From Wikipedia...

In 1965, when the Asquith brothers approached Associated Dairies to run the butchery departments within their small store chain, a merger was proposed. So they joined together with Noel Stockdale, Arthur Stockdale's son, to form a new company, Asquith + Dairies = Asda (capitalised from 1985).
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
peterh988 Avatar
111 months ago
Supermarkets have been slow at implementing Contactless. Tesco has only just recently started accepting it. Sainsbury's don't support it yet. ASDA have a very small trial. It's only Waitrose and M&S that have been offering contactless for some time (and Apple Pay since it launched).
At first I thought it was about data grabbing on your shopping habits, but everyone has a loyalty card to do that these days, so you don't really need the payment method to do that.

You'd think stores would want to make it as easy as possible for people to spend as much as possible in the way they prefer.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Jme Saunders Avatar
111 months ago
It's also important to know, unlike in the USA where launch partners are needed as the adoption of contactless isn't as common... ASDA will be supporting *all* contactless payments.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dtuck90 Avatar
111 months ago
The Tesco superstore where I work in Staffordshire had contactless terminals installed last night and I've used apple pay a few times today
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
tonemonkey the bluesman Avatar
111 months ago
I've used apple pay in ASDA since the launch of the 6s... Trialling?
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Max Portakabin Avatar
110 months ago
Several in the same area?
SE England
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)