NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Apple today announced major new updates to Apple Pay, including the addition of store credit, debit and loyalty cards in the U.S., expansion of the mobile-payments service to its first overseas market, the UK, and a renaming of the wallet app itself from Passbook to Wallet.
Loyalty and membership cards, planned for the fall, will be the first nonpayment applications Apple has added to the NFC-based payments platform. And Jennifer Bailey, vice president of Apple Pay business, speaking Monday at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, said that Apple Pay would automatically present the loyalty or membership card, loaded into the wallet, “so you’ll never miss a reward.” This could add a key incentive to encourage consumers to opt for their smartphone wallet over their physical one.
The UK expansion, which is scheduled to launch next month, will include banks and issuers representing more than 70% of credit and debit card issuance in the UK, including HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyd’s Bank, NatWest and American Express, though with the conspicuous absence of major issuer and pioneering contactless-payment backer Barclays.
