Apple Pay is coming to Switzerland’s largest bank UBS after it refused to adopt it for years.
A report from the website MacPrime shared an image from UBS suggesting that Apple Pay will go live in the near future. No date has been announced for exactly when that will take place. However, it will reportedly be in the next few weeks.
Apple Pay made its debut in Switzerland in July 2016, initially supported by Bonus Card, Cornèr Bank and SwissBankers. But getting UBS and bank Credit Suisse to adopt it has not been straightforward.
In an attempt to boost Swiss mobile payment service TWINT, they allegedly blocked Apple Pay adoption with their credit cards. This even sparked an investigation to see whether the banks had colluded. The banks disputed the investigation. UBS said that it tried to broker an agreement with Apple back in 2016. “Unfortunately no agreement could be reached,” it noted.
Fortunately, it seems cooler heads prevailed somewhere along the way. The adoption of Apple Pay by UBS will open Apple’s mobile service up to the majority of Swiss banking customers.