Apple Pay Comes to Sweden, Finland, Denmark and United Arab Emirates

Apple Pay continues its slow but steady global expansion as it has added four new countries to the list of locales where the contactless payment system is available to consumers. Apple Pay is now available in Sweden, Finland, Denmark and the United Arab Emirates.

Apple Pay in Finland and Sweden will be supported by Nordea and ST1 bank. Denmark banks include Nordea bank and Jyse bank (debit cards only). Meanwhile, in the United Arab Emirates six banks will support Apple’s payments system, including Emirates Islamic (Visa cards), Emirates NBD, HSBC, mashreq, RAKBANK (Mastercard) and Standard Chartered Bank.

Apple Pay allows users to pay with their iPhone or Apple Watch at participating retailers that have contactless payments terminals in their places of business. More financial institutions can be expected to sign up in the new countries moving forward.

Adding Your Credit or Debit Card to Apple Pay

Users can add their credit or debit card to Apple Pay, by doing the following:

• iPhone users running iOS 10 can go to the Wallet app and tap the “+” icon in the upper right-hand corner to begin, and then just follow the prompts. Users of iPads with Touch ID can add a card to the service to use in apps by going into “Settings” -> “Wallet & Apple Pay” to add a card there.
• Apple Watch users will need to enter the Watch app on their iPhone, Tap on the “Wallet & Apple Pay” option, and then tap the “Add Credit or Debit Card” option.

Apple Pay Cash, a new “person to person” payment feature, will allow users to send money to friends and family via iMessage. The feature will be U.S.-only, and is expected to debut with the release of iOS 11.1.