Barclays has confirmed that it will not support contactless payments service Apple Pay until early 2016 – even though the network has already been adopted by the likes of Lloyds, NatWest, Nationwide, HSBC and Halifax.
The bank’s plans for Apple Pay were extracted through the time-honoured medium of a customer complaint from software blogger Mike Jobson, who raised the issue not just on his behalf, but of others who bank with Barclays.
“I am writing to you to complain about the complete lack of attention and care you have paid to your customers over the Apple Pay situation you seem to be ignoring,” Jobson stated in his missive.
“You only have to look at comments on your social media output to see that most customers want Apple Pay and are prepared to switch banks for it. Why don't you just get on the Apple Pay train before you get left behind?”
In a response, none other than Barclays UK head of personal and corporate banking Ashok Vaswani wrote: “We have signed up for Apple Pay and will launch it very early in the new year. We truly value your custom and hope that you continue to bank with us particularly, since we are launching this shortly.”
Barclays’ relative slowness with taking up the platform reflects a broader feeling in the consumer finance industry that, since Apple Pay was unveiled in September last year, it has got off to a slow start compared to most other Apple products.
Earlier this month, Jared Schrieber – CEO of consumer research group InfoScout – told the Irish Times: “People don’t know why it is they’d use Apple Pay. They are satisfied with the current methods and they don’t know how Apple Pay works.”
However, there are signs that the service is beginning to catch on in some quarters, with US fast-food retailers Starbucks, KFC and Chili’s Grill & Bar announcing on the same day this month that they are kitting out their sales terminals with the required technology.
At around the same time, Delta Airlines became the first US-based carrier to add Apple Pay to its customer offering, integrating it with its Fly Delta app, which was launched five years ago.
While Apple Pay’s detractors have pointed out that it accounts for just 1% of all US retail transactions, largely because it is available only to iPhone 6 users, Richard Crone of payments-sector advisory firm Crone Consulting has pointed out that this small slice of the market is still worth $5.2bn.
On that basis, he said, “It’s a resounding success.”