Austria is set to become one of the next countries to get Apple Pay, months after Apple opened its first official Apple Store in the country.
A report describing the availability is relatively light on details, although it suggests that Bank Austria, one of the country’s biggest banks, will be among the initial card issuers.
Apple Pay is currently available in 29 different market, having last month launched launched in Poland and Norway. It first went live in initial market, the United States, on October 20, 2014.
Tim Cook has previously suggested that rolling out Apple Pay had proven more challenging than expected to roll out. “Mobile payments have taken off slower than I personally would have thought if you asked me sitting here a few years ago.”
Apple is had particular challenges in Austria’s neighboring Germany. This has involved tense negotiations between Apple and German banks regarding fees and control, which have yet to be settled successfully.
According to one report published earlier this year, analyst Gene Munster suggested that Apple Pay currently has an estimated active user base in excess of 127 million people. Hopefully Apple can count on a significant portion of Austria’s 8.7 million citizens to add to that number.
Today’s report doesn’t give an exact date for the launch, but it is likely to be in the next several months.
Source: Der Standard
