Apple Pay is officially open for business in Italy, with Visa and MasterCards issued by Boon, Carrefour, and UniCredit all able to used by customers. Additional banks are set to be added later on in 2017.
We first saw concrete proof that Apple Pay was on its way to Italy earlier this year, when Apple updated the local support document pages giving details about the service. At the time, Apple didn’t include details of specific banks, and used images of generic credit cards instead of branded ones.
With Italy added, Apple Pay is now available in the U.S., United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, China, Singapore, Switzerland, France, Hong Kong, Russia, New Zealand, Spain, Republic of Ireland, Ireland, and Taiwan. It’s been a slow rollout, having first debuted in the U.S. way back in October 2014. Apple Pay most recently arrived in Taiwan and Ireland.
Italy represents the seventh largest country to get Apple Pay in terms of overall population size. Germany is likely to follow soon, having had its localized Apple Pay support pages go live at the same time as Italy’s.
Consumer spending analytics company TXN has described Apple Pay as a “success story,” although noted that there is still “lots of room for future growth.” The number of Apple Pay transactions grew significantly last year, while the service got a big boost when it was brought to macOS with last year’s Sierra update.
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Source: Apple
