Apple Pay Makes Another European Play

With all the news coming out of Apple this week at its big Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), it’s no surprise that another country is eyeing its mobile payments service. This time, however, it’s one region that doesn’t always get a lot of attention.

Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

The two countries, however, are testing out how the mobile payment option would fare with their consumers, a regional Slovakian newspaper, The Slovak Spectator, reported. Apple’s move into Slovakia isn’t unexpected though, as the region is said to be opening its doors to more innovation, including more ways to pay via mobile or smartwatches.

“Two new ways of payment are prepared for markets in both countries: one of them is MDES system, which we have developed in collaboration with Apple Pay,” Richard Walitza, Vice President of Mobile Payments & Innovations at MasterCard Europe, said at a recent event.

The Czech Republic in particular could be an interesting region for Apple since Walitza indicated that “70 percent of transactions are made via mobile Internet.” Contactless payments have been around since 2008, but like in the U.S., have been slow to take off. In terms of contactless payment cards, data from the Association for Bank Cards in Slovakia show that were more than 3.2 million contactless cards issued by the end of 2014, but the regulation in the country has a cap at about $22.55 (€20).

Earlier this week, the big news about Apple Pay was confirmation that it’s expanding to the U.K. next month, which will kickoff Apple’s mark in Europe as it looks to expand across the world. Apple Pay’s expansion into the U.K. will start with 250,000 merchant locations accepting the mobile payment option.

Apple Pay will support U.K. credit and debit cards from American Express, MasterCard and Visa Europe, and those issued by many of the U.K.’s biggest banks, including HSBC, NatWest, Nationwide Building Society, Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander and Ulster Bank. Other major issuing banks will follow by this fall, Apple said, which includes Bank of Scotland, Coutts, Halifax, Lloyds Bank, MBNA, M&S Bank and TSB Bank.

Apple Pay will also provide access to the London Tube as well as its iconic double decker buses. Olympic aficionados might well remember the effort to NFC-enable public transportation in anticipation of the Olympics which were held in London in 2012.

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