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

Apple Pay will launch in Austria in the "coming months," according to well-known Austrian newspaper Der Standard. The report cites two unnamed sources and says Bank Austria could be one of the participating issuers.

Apple Pay first debuted in the United States in October 2014, and its availability has since expanded to over 20 countries and territories around the world, most recently including Norway, Poland, and the Ukraine:

United States
United Kingdom
Australia
Canada
Singapore
Switzerland
Hong Kong
France
Russia
China
Japan
New Zealand
Spain
Taiwan
Ireland

Guernsey
Isle of Man
Jersey
Italy
San Marino
Vatican City
Denmark
Finland
Sweden
United Arab Emirates
Brazil
Ukraine
Poland
Norway

Apple Pay enables users to add a debit or credit card from participating banks to the Wallet app and pay with a compatible iPhone or Apple Watch at stores that accept contactless payments, or in apps and on the web.

(Thanks, Michael and Rudolf!)

Related Roundup: Apple Pay

Tag: Austria

Top Rated Comments

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TheralSadurns

2 weeks ago

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

Rating: 7 Votes

atikalz

2 weeks ago

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

Rating: 7 Votes

Robert.Walter

2 weeks ago

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.

Rating: 2 Votes

mdellepi

2 weeks ago

no - it - does - not.

Maestro and V-Pay are supported for months if not years by ApplePay. It is already in use in France and Italy.

Sad that this wrong information (newly added) is being spreaded over and over again...

Oh, ok. I was referring to articles like this one:

http://www.maclife.de/news/ios-12-kann-deutsche-ec-karten-apple-pay-unterstuetzen-100104185.html

But it’s true, the VPay and Maestro logos are already in the Apple Pay Italian website.

It’s also true that there has been some variation in the API in iOS 12, though.

Rating: 2 Votes

Kaibelf

2 weeks ago

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.

Rating: 2 Votes

Mike MA

2 weeks ago

Rating: 2 Votes

[AUT] Thomas

2 weeks ago

[USER=715842]@Robert.Walter[/USER] 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.

Rating: 2 Votes

Icestyle

2 weeks ago

yay!
I'm using boon (Ireland) since December '17 and always pay with my Apple Watch. Haven't had to pay with cash even once since then...
As I am also a customer of Bank Austria, this makes me happy as I wouldn't have to preload money into boon anymore. :)

Rating: 1 Votes

Martius

2 weeks ago

Please please Czech Republic. It's so close :D

Rating: 1 Votes

Agneev

2 weeks ago

Please tell me that the Pope has used Apple Pay.

Rating: 1 Votes

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