Although Barclays announced a collaboration was coming "in the future" on July 14, it has taken nine months to come to fruition. The bank is thought to have been reluctant to partner with Apple given its own contactless platform, bPay, which allows customers to make payments using a fob, wristband or bPay sticker through their account. It has also experimented with contactless gloves and jackets in the past. Apple Pay currently works on five models of iPhone (the 6, 6s and SE generations) and all three versions of the Apple Watch thanks to embedded near-field communication (NFC) chips. Registering debit or credit cards to a compatible iPhone allows users to make payments or transactions by pressing a thumb or finger to the Touch ID fingerprint scanner in the home button to verify their identity. Customers can also use it to travel around London's TfL networks.
Barclays has become the last major bank to partner with Apple Pay in the UK, enabling its customers to start using using contactless payments. This comes nine months after Apple launched the British platform during later this year. Barclays has reportedly been reluctant to follow the lead of Apple Pay’s first adopters Natwest, Royal Bank of Scotland and Santander, due to Barclays' introduction of its own bPay system. After Apple Pay’s successful launch in China, where 3m cards were registered within 48 hours, it will now have a head start on rivals Android Pay and Samsung Pay, which launch in the UK July 2015.