Monday 28 September 2015

Barclays and their lack of support for Apple Pay

One of the great features of the iPhone 6 and the Apple Watch is Apple Pay. The ability to pay for stuff using your watch or phone, 2 things which you are going to have on you almost all the time.

I was quite excited over this especially as here in the UK we have had to wait almost a year since they got it over the Atlantic.

Then imagine after all that excitement you find out that the bank you have banked with for over 25 years, one of the biggest banks in the UK, doesn't support it. Not only that but they are pretty much the ONLY bank now in the UK not to support it.

Instead they want to push their own product called bPay. It's basically a sticker, or a key fob, or a wrist band... that you pay for. Let's get this straight Barclays... No one is going to want any of these things. Why it that?

  • I don't want an extra thing on my bunch of keys. I hate having to find my keys and the thought of trying to find them when I want to travel on the underground would drive me nuts.
  • I don't want to wear a wrist band. I have a watch. It tells me the time. It does a whole bunch of other clever stuff that your wrist band doesn't. Does your wrist band tell the time? No.
  • The idea of sticking something on my shiny aluminium smart phone is also a joke. Especially when if I lose it or it gets stolen, they don't need to approve payments using their fingerprints. It's totally insecure. Let's face it the risk of my phone being stolen is probably higher than me having my wallet stolen.
Don't even get me started on the thought of clothing with build in contactless. I have a phone that can do it (if you bloody enable it).

So what's the hold up? Technical implementation / system issues? No. It's all in place and is all managed by Visa / Mastercard etc. All you have to do is agree on the marketing / sales stuff.

Why you can't just give people the right to choose what form of payment they want to use. I don't want to have to switch banks after being with you with for so long but I probably will if you don't announce something soon.

I'm also not the only one to think so. Have a look through Twitter and there are endless tweets from people complaining about it. That's right Barclays, they are your customers and you are not listening to them:

In fact just about every promotional bit of social media you post just gets replied by people complaining about your lack of support for Apple Pay.

Take. A. Hint.

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