Apple Pay is a great little service that has managed to dodge South Africa for years. While we might receive a shipment of every new iPhone, our little Southern country has been locked out of some of the company’s better services thanks to a few different reasons, first and foremost that many of our banks don’t actually support the app. Yet that doesn’t appear to be the case for some as a select range of banks will now support Apple Pay. It’s about damn time.
If you’re unsure about what Apple Pay is, it’s essentially an app that allows users to turn their device into a payment method. Users can log their card details into the app and efficiently make payments through online marketplaces or physical stores that support the service. “You can make contactless, secure purchases in stores, in apps, and on the web. And you can send and receive money from friends and family right in Messages. (It’s) a safer way to pay, and even simpler than using your physical card,” reads the description on Apple’s official site.
Apple Pay is now live for select banks locally. Exciting to see work I finished last year finally go live for the public. It was exciting to work on one of the first implementations of it here pic.twitter.com/yX7LU8wqry
— Alessandro Barbosa (@CaptionBarbosa) March 30, 2021
Apple Pay it forward
We caught wind of this following a tweet from Alessandro Barbosa, a software engineer who developed the front end version of the app for Discovery Bank. Apple Pay will be supported by Absa, Nedbank and obviously Discovery Bank. While the app will finally be inducted into a bunch of banks around the country, it remains to be seen how many outlets will support the feature, but one has to assume given the rise in popularity of contactless payment that users probably won’t be starved for opportunities to use Apple Pay.
While members of Discovery Bank, Nedbank and Absa are no doubt pleased at the prospect of Apple Pay, it seems like several other South African banks have not been involved just yet. In the Stuff office this morning we attempted to load FNB and Standard Bank details into Apple Pay only to have them rejected. We’re currently unsure as to whether or not Capitec and Investec are compatible with the app but we’ll update this article the second we find out.
