Specifically, in the iOS 17.1 update, Apple has emphasised a notable feature for users in the UK, enabling them to link their credit and debit cards to the Apple Wallet. This functionality allows users to conveniently access essential information such as account balance and spending history.
Within the Wallet, users can now view real-time details of their bank card balance, including payments, deposits, and withdrawals. This information is accessible not only within the Wallet but also during online and in-app transactions using Apple Pay. Apple asserts that this new feature aims to empower users, providing them with insights to make more informed purchasing decisions, bolstering transaction confidence, and facilitating easy access to pertinent financial data.
Representatives from Apple Pay and Apple Wallet cited by macrumors.com expressed that by integrating useful account information into Wallet, users can make informed financial choices and better manage their expenditures. Apple is also looking to collaborate with UK partners as part of an Open Banking initiative to enhance users' financial health and foster better relationships between banks and customers.
The Wallet app received the transaction and card balance functionality in the October update, branded as the Connected Cards feature. Several banks, including Barclays, Barclaycard, First Direct, Halifax, HSBC, Lloyds, M&S Bank, Monzo Bank, NatWest Bank, and Royal Bank of Scotland, have since adopted this feature. It's also worth noting that UK banks support the Open Banking API, ensuring widespread availability of this feature to users in the UK.
In November 2023, Apple enabled Tap to Pay functionality on iPhones in Ukraine, allowing the use of iPhones as payment terminals in the country.
Following this development, Ukraine became the seventh region to support Tap to Pay, following similar rollouts in the UK, Australia, Taiwan, Brazil, and the Netherlands earlier in 2023.
The feature was introduced in the United States in February 2022, and allows compatible iPhones to accept payments via Apple Pay, contactless credit and debit cards, and other digital wallets, using only an iPhone with no additional hardware or credit card machine being required.
PrivatBank was the first payment platform to offer Tap to Pay on iPhone to its Ukraine-based business customers, and its officials revealed the institution’s goals to support businesses to scale and save by leveraging fast, in-person payment solutions.
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