Switzerland’s biggest bank, UBS, has finally embraced Apple Pay, the bank revealed Wednesday. The bank announced Apple Pay support as “coming soon” back in April. However, it has taken another few months for that to promise to come to fruition.
Customers of the bank can start using Apple Pay today for both credit cards and pre-paid cards.
Geniessen Sie jetzt alle Vorteile Ihrer UBS Kredit- oder Prepaid-Karte mit Apple Pay. Bezahlen Sie Ihre Einkäufe sicher & kontaktlos mit Ihrem iPhone und Apple Watch. Mehr dazu: https://t.co/u4rn08jsBQ pic.twitter.com/ozoyIRxALG
— UBS Schweiz (@UBSschweiz) August 18, 2020
Some Apple Pay customers in Switzerland have been able to use Apple’s contactless payments system since 2016. Apple Pay made its debut in the country in July that year. It was initially supported by Bonus Card, Cornèr Bank and SwissBankers. However, UBS was a notable holdout.
Together with Credit Suisse, it refused to adopt Apple Pay for a long time. This was supposedly an attempt to boost Swiss mobile payment service TWINT. This even triggered an investigation to see whether the banks had colluded. The two banks disputed the accusations.
UBS claims that it tried to come to an agreement with Apple over Apple Pay in 2016. “Unfortunately no agreement could be reached,” it noted.
Fortunately, it seems that things have changed since then.
