Apple is "working rapidly" to expand Apple Pay to additional countries in Asia and Europe, and there's increasing evidence and reports that suggest the service may launch in Italy and Germany in the near future.
Apple recently updated its Apple Pay participating banks and card issuers in Asia-Pacific support document with a new image of Europe that has Italy highlighted. The change isn't visible on the United States or Europe versions of the page, suggesting that it may have been added to the Asia-Pacific page prematurely.
MacRumors discovered a colored version of the image stored on Apple's servers that makes it easier to see Italy highlighted.
Apple's regional Italian website has listed Apple Pay as "coming soon" since March, so it's only a matter of time—WWDC?—before the payments service launches in the country. At launch, Apple Pay will work with Visa and MasterCard in Italy through participating banks UniCredit, Boon, and Carrefour Banca.
Meanwhile, German blog iPhone-Ticker reports that Apple Pay should launch in Germany in the fall or winter. As in some other countries, however, the negotiations between Apple and German banks allegedly continue to be challenging, likely as both sides struggle to reach an agreement over fees and control.
Last October, Germany was similarly highlighted on the Apple Pay availability map, but only for a brief period of time.
Apple Pay launched in the United States in October 2014, and it has since expanded to 14 other countries and regions: Australia, Canada, China, France, Hong Kong, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom. There was also a rumor that Belgium could be added this month.
Top Rated Comments
I mean, once they negotiate a rate I'm sure it will be harder to move away from it for banks especially.
Also, Germans are VERY reluctant to change banks, so their negotiation power in this is a lot higher than most other places.
Comments like "I changed banks to have Apple Pay" would be rather rare here save for the diehard Apple fans who read about Apple Pay every month on MR et all...
Meanwhile, a range of mobile payment options have long been available. Whilst less secure, less flexible or less convenient and integrated, many of them seem to cover that basic urge to pay with the phone just fine. Another hit to the negotiation power that Apple may have.
Glassed Silver:mac
[doublepost=1494628050][/doublepost]QR code based system?? Is it 2013 again? :rolleyes:
Whenever something... anything really... is NEW they immediately HATE it and dismiss it as nonsense. People who use such things are ridiculed on top of everything else.
Smartphones? HAHAHAHA NO ONE needs **** like this... SOOOO useless...
Meanwhile people in all other countries start using them.
5 years later... all of a sudden... smartphones are great in Germany too... and nobody even remembers dismissing them.
Same with tablets...
Non-cash payments...
Electric cars...
The list goes on and on.
I am so fed up with the people here...
Apple design ApplePay for the US where NFC payments were still new and "cool", the problem for them is that in many other parts of the world NFC is already implemented, so Apple is in a far weaker negotiating position in relation to transaction fees.
Another issue that puts Apple is a weaker negotiating position in Germany, is the iPhone is far less popular there than US, UK or AU.
source ('https://mspoweruser.com/here-are-the-kantar-smartphone-market-share-numbers-for-march-2017/').