True, there were dissenting opinions, but I believe in the will of the people, with the ‘best answer’ accepted by the OP having 17 upvotes.
I’m back at school, being told off by a schoolmaster for my incompetence!
Fair. In the interest of clarity, will avoid any ambiguous phrases.
On the other hand some of the smaller UK banks seem to have some technical issues with withdrawing GBP.
Back to Apple Pay:
I’m not too sure…
If the IIN/BIN of the debit card is the only thing restricting Apple Pay launch (Let’s say a South African bank gets US IINs somehow for its customers, does that mean their customers in South Africa can have Apple Pay? I don’t think so. I’ve never ever seen any banks use this ‘loophole’.), then why do other banks with customers across the EU roll out Apple Pay supported via phases?
Let’s assume (N26’s not expanded into the UK unfortunately, so can’t enter a N26 BIN into a IIN/BIN checker.) N26’s issuer is in an EU country that has Apple Pay Support.
Why launch it in phases, if Italy, Spain and France are all in the EU? All EU countries should be therefore supported, by way of the theoretical Apple Pay-supported EU country that N26 has as its issuing country.
Apple has updated its regional websites to indicate that Apple Pay is expanding to additional banks in France, Italy, and Spain.
In Italy, Apple Pay is now available at Banca Mediolanum for Mediolanum Card debit cards, which are based on Mastercard’s Maestro network.
In Spain, Apple Pay is now supported by Boon, a mobile wallet solution based on a prepaid account with a digital Mastercard. Boon users top-up their accounts with a debit or credit card, or via wire transfer. Boon also supports Apple Pay in the United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, Ireland, and Italy.
But… UK’s an Apple Pay-supported country! Why can’t Continental banks just set up a letterbox subsidiary in the UK, or/and use a UK issuer (e.g. PaySafe) and then issue cards to customers in the EU?!
Can it be that the issuing country doesn’t matter, and that what matters is the location of the account holder?
In my view the relationship is lockstep and the person who makes the first decision is Apple, and not a retail bank.