About to pass the equator of the year and we still have no trace of Apple Pay in Spain. The worst thing is not that it is not there yet, but that it is not even expected. It was Tim Cook himself who last year announced the arrival of Apple's payment service in our country, but The disappointment was capitalized when in the last Apple Keynote in which iOS 10 was presented, the next countries in which Apple Pay would be launched were announced and ours was not among them. What about Apple Pay in Spain? What are the problems that are delaying its launch in our country?
Infrastructure already available
Spain is one of the countries with the most terminals compatible with «contactless» payments. It is practically the only requirement for Apple Pay to reach the country, at least in terms of infrastructure. Merchants would not have to invest in new payment terminals to be able to accept Apple Pay, which is a very important facilitating factor. You just have to reach agreements with banks and card issuers for Apple Pay to launch, so it seems that the problem is there.
Banks could be the brake
When we pay for a product in a store, many interested parties are involved. On the one hand, the issuer of our card, in addition to our bank, and also the bank of the store that is usually the one that gives the payment terminal. ANDIt is easy to understand that the more parts, the more commissions, and with Apple at stake, we would have to add the part that Apple wants to take out of the business. This could be the origin of the Apple Pay problems in Spain.
But why does Santander accept Apple Pay in the UK and not in Spain? The conditions for card payments in the United Kingdom are different from those in Spain. The same occurs in the United States where there are dozens of banks that accept Apple Pay. Sources close to banks who know the business conditions speak of very favorable conditions for banks, who do not want anyone to come and take part of their cake.
Banks prepare their own mobile payment system
Obviously mobile payments are the future (the present in many places already), and banks know it. That is why they have come together to create their own mobile payment system, independent of the one proposed by other giants such as Apple, Google, Samsung, etc. The name of this unique system is Bizum, and it already has the backing of entities such as Santander, CaixaBank, BBVA, Popular, BMN, Bankia, Bankinter, among others..
This mobile payment system should not be an impediment for other new players to enter the game, and for this there is the CNMC (National Commission of Markets and Competition), which should ensure that there are no monopolies or situations of superiority of some entities in front of others, but We already know how things work when we talk about banking in our country.
It will be late, but it will come
The landing of the big ones with their mobile payments will end up coming, that is something that few doubt, but that the big banks will first want to try to monopolize the entire possible market is also a fact. Samsung Pay has already arrived, but from the hand of a single entity and with very little acceptance by users. Apple Pay and Android Pay will arrive, hopefully before the end of the year at least. Meanwhile we will continue to wait.
For weeks when I enter iCloud from a browser after deleting cookies, a help prompt for iCloud or Apple Pay appears at the bottom. So his arrival may not be that far
By the time it wants to arrive in condition it will be obsolete to use it on the iphone 6, I would like nothing more than to file a class action lawsuit for misleading advertising.
It is very true that they should be sued for fraud since they sell you a team with something that later you do not know if you have it since it does not work or you cannot make it serve freely, and everything because they want to put their noses in everything, let's keep giving them vidilla and paying what they charge for a good camera with a phone.