Barclays Support Emerges as Apple Pay Struggles With Australian Banks

It looks like Apple Pay is finally going to get the support Barclays has long promised. The UK bank has confirmed, via an email reply to a customer inquiry, that its customers will be able to start integrating their payment cards into the mPayment app “within the next 60 to 75 days.”

Having held out longer than the UK’s other major banks, Barclays finally agreed to offer Apple Pay support just before its launch in the region last summer. However, in the ensuing months that support did not materialize, likely because Barclays was focusing on its own in-house mPayment solution. Now that the Barclaycard mPayment app has actually been launched, Barclays seems more willing to usher its competition into the ring.

Meanwhile, Apple is still struggling to negotiate with the recalcitrant banks of Australia, going so far as to try to impose fines valued in the tens of millions of dollars should any of them publicly release information about their negotiations; this came to light via confidentiality agreements leaked to Fairfax Media. It’s a hard line for Apple to take, given that rival Android Pay recently came to terms with a few major Australian banks, clearing the way for its launch in the country.

Despite these difficulties, Apple is still looking ahead to further integrations of its service with merchants and vendors, with CEO Tim Cook announcing this week that Apple Pay will soon be compatible with ExxonMobil’s Speedpass+ solution, enabling in-app payments to the gas company.

Sources: The Sydney Morning Herald, Wired, AppleInsider