Apple Pay Has Finally Arrived!
With 6 banks in the UAE letting their users use iPhones to make payments
Introduction
For all those with iPhones, leave those chunky wallets behind because they’ve finally launched Apple Pay in the UAE! Apple Pay can be used if you have a credit card from any of these 6 banks, Mashreq, Emirates NBD, Emirates Islamic, RAK Bank, HSBC and Standard Chartered. The phones that are compatible for Apple Pay are the models 6 or later. How many times have we walked out the door for something with just our phones but quickly had to turn around just to retrieve our wallets/purses? Well, confidently walk out with your phones now!
What is Apple Pay?
Apple Pay is a secure and private way to make purchases anywhere at any time, whether from websites, physically in stores or through apps. When in stores, the transaction is made using a wireless credit card reader. Furthermore, it’s convenient because your phone is something you have with you most times. With Apple Pay being launched in the UAE, 20 countries are now on board. Apple Pay now competes with Samsung Pay (available since April), and Beam, (available since 2012).
Why the UAE?
So why did they finally decide to launch in the UAE? Because UAE has seen an increase in the e-commerce sector and that proves to be a win-win situation for all!
The Apple Pay feature did not just pop out in the UAE market only because other countries had it. They did a careful examination of factors such as the number of iPhone and credit card users in the country to determine whether to launch it here. Because card spending has increased over the past couple of years, people here are leaning toward a cashless environment. The UAE government supports the cashless initiative as well by partnering with a number of local and international banks within the UAE and so launching Apple Pay will only progress the growth toward a cashless environment.
How it works?
A lot of us might speculate how safe it is to be using our credit card details online. However, Apple Pay makes it possible for you to make the transaction without the company knowing what you bought, the price and from where. Furthermore, the details are not stored on the iPhone, the Apple Servers or given out to anybody. Should you lose your phone, you can remotely remove your cards and data and disable the transaction facility.
Still not buying it? Let’s get into the real tech-y stuff.
What Apple Pay uses is a system called “tokenization”. This makes your payments secure by providing the user with a token that replaces all your data and personal information so it cannot be manipulated and used elsewhere. All that is visible is a list of the payments made using Apple Pay but that’s about it when it comes to seeing actual data.
Conclusion and less known facts
- It’s not only credit card, you can also link your debit card and start using it
- You will need to have the latest iOS version to be able to set up your Apply Pay wallet
- Wallet can be used for other things such as cinema e-tickets, flight boarding pass, etc
- You can also do transactions using Apple Watch
So drop those bulky wallets, get a snazzy phone cover because we know you’re going to start using Apple Pay from now on. How convenient that now all you need to walk out of the house with is your phone!
Source
Written and Researched by Serena Sibi
