Apple Pay has gone live in the UK, with the rumours of a 14 July launch day proving accurate.
Apple Pay is available to customers of NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander, Nationwide, Ulster Bank, MBNA and American Express and works with Visa, MasterCard and American Express credit cards.
The launch was looking imminent after a HSBC tweet on Monday revealed that the service would land although, interestingly, HSBC is one of the major absentees on day one.
The tweet – which has now been deleted – is apparently not the reason HSBC isn't involved from the off, but there are murmurs that the Cupertino giant could well be punishing the bank for spilling the details. HSBC states it will be involved by the end of the month.
Barclays, another absentee, has also stated that it is looking to launch on Apple Pay in the near future and five other banks: Bank of Scotland, Halifax, Lloyds, TSB and Marks and Spencer will launch in the autumn.
Checkout smart: Where can I use Apple Pay
The list of Apple Pay supporting banks is impressive, and Apple seems to have got the clean sweep, bar Barclaycard, which is pursuing its own contactless strategy with the bPay band.
It also has an impressive number of supporting stores too, with M&S, McDonalds, Boots, Waitrose, Pret a Manger, and Starbucks just a few high street names that have signed up to the service.
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James is the co-founder of Wareable, and he has been a technology journalist for 15 years.
He started his career at Future Publishing, James became the features editor of T3 Magazine and T3.com and was a regular contributor to TechRadar – before leaving Future Publishing to found Wareable in 2014.
James has been at the helm of Wareable since 2014 and has become one of the leading experts in wearable technologies globally. He has reviewed, tested, and covered pretty much every wearable on the market, and is passionate about the evolving industry, and wearables helping people achieve healthier and happier lives.