Back in June, Apple announced that Apple Pay would be coming to the UK in July. According to a tweet by HSBC, the service will launch tomorrow (Tuesday 14 July).
The tweet was promptly deleted and followed up by saying there is “no set date for launch.â€Â. Of course, once it’s tweeted it’s sure to be caught by someone and 9to5Mac grabbed a screenshot of the tweet before it disappeared, which shows a support rep responding to a customer inquiry about the payment service’s ETA by saying,
“Yes! It’s due to launch this Tuesday! We are excited too!â€Â
At launch, over 250,000 locations will accept Apple Pay, with support from eight of the UK’s most established banks, across all of the major credit and debit card networks.
Apple Pay will support UK credit and debit cards from American Express, MasterCard and Visa Europe, issued by many of the UK’s most popular banks, including first direct, HSBC, NatWest, Nationwide Building Society, Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander and Ulster Bank.
Other major issuing banks will follow by this fall, including Bank of Scotland, Coutts, Halifax, Lloyds Bank, MBNA, M&S Bank and TSB Bank.
Barclay’s, which has been notably missing from that launch list, is reportedly planning to support the service in the future, but presently seem to be more interested in promoting their own bPay system.
Apple Pay will initially be subject to a spending limit of £20 per payment, but this expected to be raised to £30 in September.
