Apple Pay now ready to ease payment mode in Australia and Canada

Apple Pay mobile payment service initiated by Apple will now extend its operation across two more countries, Australia and Canada, the telecom giant announced on Tuesday. The American Express cardholders from the countries will have easy access to the mode of payment later this year.

CEO Tim Cook made the announcement during an investor conference call where it announced the fourth-quarter earnings of the company. He said that the company was planning to bring Apple Pay to the global market for a long time.

Apple Pay is a mobile app that allows customers to pay easily for goods and services they buy. As soon as an iPhone is registered on the app, the customers can access the easy payment options either online or in-store. The payment service has existed in the United States since its launch in October 2014. The service crossed the U.S. border in July 2015 and extended its reach across the U.K.

Now, Apple Pay is crossing borders once again for Australians and Canadians with an American Express account. According to Apple’s plan in collaboration with American Express, the next goal is to give the payment service an extension to the markets across Spain, Hong Kong and Singapore from the beginning of 2016.

No announcement has yet been made on whether Apple Pay service will reach the banking and credit card sectors of both the countries. So far as Australia is concerned, the country has several financial institutions that render cashless payment space. Some of them include the Commonwealth Bank, St.George and Westpac. Australia’s android users have NFC service within their smartphones that allow making payments to contactless terminals in the nation.

The adoption of Apple Pay seems to have a slower pace among the U.S. users who prefer its counterparts Android Pay and Paypal more. Apple Pay, however, represents 68 percent of in-store mobile bill payments as indicated by the Accenture’s North America Consumer Digital Payments Survey 2015 released last week.

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