250,000 merchants in Britain accept Apple Pay - Why Bitcoin is more secure as Eight banks except HSBC and Lloyds on the Bandwagon

“Apple Pay's launch is certainly good news for the UK. What has always been a struggle is for Apple Pay and the competitors to build a large enough ecosystem of merchants and Bank partners in order to enable immediate adoption”

Assistant Professor of Strategic Management at Warwick Business School, Pinar Ozcan, commenting on Apple Pay in Britain  

British Fans of Apple, your wish has been granted.

Launched in September 2014, the Apple iPhone 6 has been a bestseller in the first Quarter of 2015 according to stats from analyst Kantar Worldpanel ComTech as reported in my blog article entitled “Apple iPhone 6 ahead in Q1 of 2015 based on @K_Worldpanel Stats - Phablets are hot as Apple Watch Summer Storm coming”.

Apple Pay has been rolled out in the UK (United Kingdom) since Tuesday July 14th 2015 and is now the accepted payment method at 250,000 locations as reported in the article “Apple Pay Goes Live In The UK, available at 250,000 locations”, published July 14, 2015 By Trevor Mogg, Digitaltrends.

So who are the Banks supporting Apple Pay? The names will surprise you!

Apple Pay in the UK – Eight Banks except HSBC and Lloyds on the Bandwagon

The plan was to have eight (8) of Britain's leading Banks support the Apple Pay rollout in Britain as noted in the article “Apple Pay lands in the UK, some major Banks missing”, published July 14, 2015 by Shara Tibken and Rich Trenholm, CNET News. However, only six (6) Banks to date have stepped up to support Apple Pay:

1.      MBNA

2.      Nationwide

3.      NatWest

4.      Royal Bank of Scotland

5.      Santander

6.      Ulster Bank

The missing two (2) Banks are HSBC and Lloyds. HSBC and their online Mobile platform FirstDirect plans to join the bandwagon later in July 2015 with Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland bringing in the rear by September 2015. 

Nobody is sure why HSBC and Lloyds are so reluctant to join in the big eight (8) Banks.

However, they delay is to their peril, as they would have lost out on seizing the opportunity to ride the Apple iPhone 6 bandwagon as pointed out by Assistant Professor of Strategic Management at Warwick Business School, Pinar Ozcan, quote: “While it is not clear why HSBC has decided not to support Apple Pay's UK launch. It rings alarm bells as consumers often have a 'now or never' approach to new technologies, easily deciding not to adopt for a long time if it is cumbersome to do so at the beginning”.

Apple Pay safer on Apple iPhone 6 – Apple Watch unsafe but Bitcoins are safer

Apple iPhone 6 and Apple Watch users can use Apple Pay, which originally rolled out on the Apple iPhone 6 as noted in my Geezam blog article entitled “Apple iPhone 6 and Plus with 128GB Storage and Apple Pay is Biggest iPhone Launch”.

Still, I’d hold off on using Apple Pay on the Apple Watch until Watch OS 2.0 roll out in September 2015 as noted in my Geezam blog article entitled “Apple WWDC 2015 debuts OS X 10.11, Watch OS 2.0 and Apple Music”.

The Apple Watch lacks the security of Touch ID and can be easily reset once stolen as explained in the article “Thieves can easily reset a stolen Apple Watch”, published May 14, 2015 By Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, ZDNet, making it a magnet for thieves.

For me, I'm just waiting on Apple Pay to accept and use Bitcoins for transactions as Microsoft and a host of other tech companies have since January 2015 as noted in my blog article entitled “Microsoft accepts Bitcoins for Purchases - Napster of Cryptocurrency set to explode in Jamaica in 2015 Year of the Sheep”, as they're far more secure than stored Credit or Prepaid Debit Cards.