Barclays, one of the last major banks and financial institutions in the United Kingdom that still does not offer Apple Pay to its customers, now aims to begin supporting the mobile payments service in the next few month. An email sent from an executive at the bank to a customer advises it is still holding to itsprevious claim of a launch early this year, and anticipates it will do so “within the next 60 to 75 days.”
The message received by Oliver Foster-Burnell, spotted by Engadget, was written by CEO of Personal and Corporate Banking Ashok Vaswani, the same executive that communicated about the “early 2016” support time. Based on the timeframe offered by Vaswani, and the date of the email sent to the customer, support for Apple Pay could commence as early as March 12 and as late as March 27.
https://twitter.com/orfoster/status/691727419833765892/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
While the majority of other banks in the UK were relatively quick to support Apple Pay, Barclays has consistently tried avoiding or delaying support for the payment platform. After initially declaring it would not support the rollout, Barclays changed its mind and promised “imminent” support in July last year, possibly due to customer feedback over its initial intentions.
Despite resisting Apple Pay, Barclays and credit card subsidiary Barclaycard have worked on alternative systems. Barclaycard’s Paytag system, which allowed for contactless payments to be triggered by a sticker attached to the back of a smartphone, was relaunched as part of a larger “bPay” ecosystem, offering wristbands and keyfobs to customers for contactless payments.
