The expansion of Apple Pay in Europe begins. The first country where he landed was the political brother of the United States, the United Kingdom. It seems that the next step is going to be France, despite the fact that collaborations with Spanish banks were announced well before. They promised us Apple Pay for the year 2016, but they didn't tell us anything else, and I wouldn't be surprised if they launched it in December taking advantage of the Christmas pull. Meanwhile, information about Apple Pay in France begins to leak, confirmed for this year 2016. Once again we see how Apple treats Spain as a second-rate market, much to our regret.
It has been the French website The echoes who has leaked that Apple Pay will arrive in France, indeed, at the end of this 2016, with a considerably slow gradual deployment and that it will start only with the most important banks in the French-speaking country. It is estimated that this expansion will take Apple between three and five months from its launch to be considered a true payment platform. Meanwhile, during the month of September there will be a kind of pilot launch with a single bank to see how the system works and the acceptance it has among the French public.
French banks want their share of the cake and that is that in China it is the only country where Apple has given in to take less commission than it intends in Europe, that's right, the slowdown problem of Apple Pay once again is money, and is that if we combine Apple with banks, the result can be devastating in negotiations, once again affecting the final consumer. Meanwhile, in Spain we are still waiting for more news, although we can understand that due to geographical proximity, it should not be much later than in France, or at least we want to believe it.
Apple could surprise us and mention applepay in Spain at the next conference in March. At least Spain was previously announced for 2016 but in the end it will be December 31, 2016