Wednesday 7 October 2015

Barclays to bring Apple Pay to the UK in the new year

Ok so I've been creating a bit of a fuss over this, but after writing to the CEO of Barclays Retail Banking in the UK, Ashok Vaswani, I got quite a swift reply back confirming their plans to launch in the new year.

I wrote a previous post about my frustrations with Barclays over their ignorance for choosing not to be part of Apple Pay. The only response from Barclays on this has been the following:
We’re working through the detail of implementation and will make an announcement on timing in due course
This has been the response from them over the past couple of months and as you can imagine is beginning to sound long in the tooth and many customers have had enough and are switching to rival banks.

I originally wrote to Ashok this morning in an email:
I am writing to you to complain about the complete lack of attention and care you have paid to your customers over the Apple Pay situation you seem to be ignoring. 
You only have to look at comments on your social media output to see that most customers want Apple Pay and are prepared to switch banks for it. Why don't you just get on the Apple Pay train before you get left behind?
 Just now I received a reply:
We have signed up for ApplePay and will launch it very early in the New Year. We truly value your custom and hope that you continue to bank with us particularly since we are launching this shortly.
So it's quite clear the rumours of the 'imminent' arrival are not quite accurate and it would appear customers wanting Apple Pay will either have to sit it out for a few (many?) months or switch banks.

13 comments:

  1. Mike, I use Apple Pay with my Barclays Credit Card. I already use the Barclays CC for every purchase I make and earn 2x points that can be applied towards travel costs. I simply pay the card off each day. Why would I care if the banking side of the business uses Apple Pay?

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    1. That's not possible. Apple Pay can't be set up with a Barclays card at the moment.

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    2. The whole comment doesn't really make sense really!

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    3. I assure you I have the Barclay Arrival credit card set up on Apple Pay. I double click the side control on my iwatch, hold near the reader, and pay.

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    4. Because you're in bloody US! This is about UK! Why do all americans think that the world revolves around them?

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  2. I am facing the same issue. I have both a Barclays Platinum Credit Card and a HSBC Credit Card, both with the same credit limit. I used to leave the HSBC one untouched (apart from the once-a-month spend just to increase my credit rating) the card is left for emergency use. Now that Barclays doesn't support Apple Pay, I will stop using the Platinum card and use the HSBC one as my primary going forward. I guess Barclays just lost another customer.

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  3. So sorry. I am in the US....we have the service here. I missed the title of your post. :-)

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  4. I too have a Barclays Platinum credit card together with a RBS credit card which, until recently, has been left dormant. However, since Apple Pay launched I have been using my RBS card and the Barclays Platinum card is now the dormant one. This is an unbelievable situation. Far too many cons with bPay.

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  6. We're now approaching the end of January and still no sign. Barclays were obviously fobbing us off with yet another lie.

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  7. I too contacted Ashok Vaswani about this and he was kind enough to reply to my query over the weekend. I can't reveal precisely what he told me, which was quite specific, but suffice it to say that the end of the wait is well within sight.

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  8. Great article. Thanks for putting this together.Looking forward to more of this.I found an interesting blog regarding apple pay here you can find it http://goo.gl/Quvpf3

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  9. Though we have traded under several names and owners, cards

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