Apple Pay Expected to Launch in Austria in 'Coming Months'

Cue my rant about Apple Pay still not being available in Germany...

Would be nice, if some neighbor country could invade Germany so we can finally get Apple Pay this way.

@Robert.Walter seems to be the problem is not just the banks but the whole system behind them. N26 said they would offer it (like in any other country in which they already do), but at the moment can't or won't in DE & AT. (I didn't look up why exactly they don't do it.)
Also, rest assured, generally speaking banking in AT is much worse than in DE except for ATM-fees.
Literally every banking startup Austria ever had either died trying or moved to Germany (N26). That pretty much sums it up. Even in the past, Austrian banks cooked their own soup rather than adopting a standard. They developed their own backend protocol (called MBS IP) rather than adopting the German HBCI/FinTS, naturally tools like Microsoft Money never worked in Austria. Needless to say, MBS access is quite expensive. Frankly, as per my point of view Austrian banks are like a cartell. They deserve everything coming to them.

Till last week I actually blamed local banks for blocking Apple Pay in most of the countries (specifically Germany) still waiting for Apple Pay to arrive. Yet I see Google Pay making faster progress here, so Apple surely can also be blamed I guess.

Till last week I actually blamed local banks for blocking Apple Pay in most of the countries (specifically Germany) still waiting for Apple Pay to arrive. Yet I see Google Pay making faster progress here, so Apple surely can also be blamed I guess.

Blamed? The banks want you to use their own systems because they can monetize your buying patterns and sell you crap and also sell data it harvests to “trusted partners.” Apple refuses to give them this data, whereas Google does share profiles on people (because that’s also how THEY make money). If anything, blame the banks for refusing to embrace convenience because they want you to only ever use their own products and want you to log into their apps to they can try to get you to open yet another of their credit cards.

Germany, Austria and Switzerland have been a tough nut to crack because of banking kartells in those countries.

Switzerland has Apple Pay but not at any significant players. There are a couple of local players that offer it (GKB and Linth) and some specialty credit card offerers (Cornerbank, Lufthansa, etc.) but none of the big national or regional banks do. Reason is collusion and that they are pushing their own moribund national Twint solution.

Austrian banks are likewise blocking customer choice but without AFAIK any seeming home grown payment alternative. The breakthrough here with Bank Austria is probably that it is 96% owned by Italy’s UniCredit bank (who is an Apple Pay partner).

Germany is slowly being ringed by countries with Apple Pay. Maybe more German customers will start to demand their banks or card offerers offer Apple Pay.

In the meantime, I’m surprised there has not been an investigation by either the German or EU cartel authorities into why nobody has signed up with Apple. To me this is a sign there is a high level of collusion going on in the banking sectors of countries where Apple Pay has not been offered or is offered but buy few, or none, of the big banks.

As soon as Apple get one decent bank in Germany to agree it’s terms, then, unless the German banks continue to band together in a cartel like in Switzerland, the dam will break.