The bank from the United Kingdom let it slip that the mobile payments service will be available in March.
U.K. bank, Barclays, has accidentally let it slip that Apple Pay is not just headed to its customers but that it is known exactly when it will be arriving and, according to the large financial institution, that will be in March.
The bank been the only major financial institution in the U.K. that hasn’t supported Apple’s mobile payments.
Customers at Barclays were the only ones with accounts at a large bank in the country that didn’t have the NFC technology based mobile payments from Apple Pay available to them. The service first became available last year in July, but the bank chose not to support those contactless payments for its iPhone carrying customers. However, the bank has now inadvertently provided confirmation that it will be arriving in March.
It was the CEO who accidentally let the release date of Apple Pay slip, when replying to an impatient customer’s email.
Ashok Vaswani, the CEO of Barclays, replied to an impatient customer’s email on January 12, giving confirmation that it would become possible to use an iPhone to complete mobile payments transactions within “60 to 75 days” of that time. That slip was all it took to provide a solid idea of when Apple’s mobile wallet would become available to customers of the bank as that is the only wallet app that is supported by the iPhone.
If Vaswani’s range of dates is accurate, it will mean that the iPhone’s mobile wallet will become available to Barclays customers at some point between March 13 and March 28. Still, despite the slip, the bank has yet to actually issue an official confirmation of the dates.
This will have Barclays joining Lloyds, Halifax, and every other large bank in the United Kingdom in offering Apple Pay to iPhone using customers. The reason for the delay in supporting the mobile wallet has not been offered by the bank. That said, it has been implied that there has been a disagreement between Apple and the bank with regards to the terms of supporting the service.
