Dan Pražák Tomorrow will be important for Czech Apple users. After several years of waiting, Apple Pay will arrive on our market. The date of February 19 in connection with the payment service from Apple has been talked about for almost two weeks. But for many, the information is still hard to believe because it came without any hint or official announcement from the company itself. We therefore decided to reach out to sources from the banking environment. Several of them independently confirmed the arrival of Apple Pay in the Czech Republic tomorrow.
Currently, Apple carefully guards the information and all banks are bound by a strict embargo. It is so completely understandable that we cannot hear any confirmation from them. We thus obtained at least the official statements of several Czech banking institutions, which you will find at the end of the article.
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Patrik Siwek According to information from our sources, only Apple itself will announce tomorrow's launch of the service on the domestic market, through a press release that it will publish in its Newsroom. The banks themselves will then communicate Apple Pay support in different ways – some will publish a press release, others will draw attention to it in their mobile application and send email newsletters to specific users.
The launch itself still depends directly on Apple. According to our sources, it would be a big surprise if it didn't happen tomorrow. The company has even started on their website to offer a set of Apple Pay stickers that can be ordered for the Czech Republic, while our country was missing from the offer until now. Thanks to the stickers, merchants can simply tell their customers that they can pay via iPhone or Apple Watch.
Banks are already fully prepared for Apple Pay. A number of them have intensively tested the service in recent weeks and have prepared all the documents for their clients. In the case of Apple Pay, most banking houses should support both card associations, i.e. Visa and Mastercard. But for the sake of completeness, we raised a question about most of them and you can read their official statement below.
Twisto
"At Twist, we are ready to offer our customers Apple Pay immediately in the first wave, i.e. the first day the service enters the Czech Republic.
Apple Pay should be coming very soon indeed. While we can't be specific, it's already an open secret that the services should launch within this week.”
Czech Savings Bank
"We are fully prepared for the launch of the Apple Pay service and we want to be among the first banks to offer this service in the Czech Republic. Within the Erste Group, we will be the first country to offer Apple Pay. We want to provide our clients who use mobile devices with the iOS operating system greater convenience when paying, security and control when paying at merchants and on the Internet. We offer the option of payment to our clients free of charge. The client simply adds their existing card to the Wallet application. It will be possible to pay with a mobile device wherever there is a logo for contactless payments or the Apple Pay logo in the Czech Republic and abroad.
In addition to payments, we want to enable contactless withdrawals from our ATMs using NFC technology for clients with phones and devices with Android and iOS operating systems. Pilot operation is currently underway at all our ATMs equipped with a contactless reader. In addition to applications for Android (e.g. Poketka) or Apple Pay, it will also be possible to make a selection using other mobile applications with a payment card on a smartphone or device equipped with NFC, which meet general standards.
Contactless withdrawals are currently possible at 230 Česká spořitelna ATMs throughout the Czech Republic. Their overview is in the ATM search engine at www.csas.cz. "
COIN Money Bank
"The decision on the date of possible launch of Apple Pay in the Czech Republic depends solely on Apple. We are ready to launch Apple Pay as soon as Apple allows us to do so. In that case, we will offer Apple Pay from the first moment to all our clients with Mastercard or VISA cards."
Fio Bank
"So far, we have not received information that Apple would officially announce the launch of Apple Pay in the Czech Republic. If this really happened on 19/2, we already know that we will not be offering the service on that date. In any case, we will try to make it available to our clients as soon as possible after its introduction."
EquaBank
"We will launch Apple Pay later this year."
AirBank
"Regarding the exact date of launching Apple Pay, despite various speculations, it remains true that only Apple can announce the date and launch the entire service. We can only prepare for when that happens.
And as regards the state of our preparations, we have said from the beginning that we want to be among the first banks to launch this service in the Czech Republic. And that continues to be true. We are already fully technically prepared for the arrival of Apple Pay. As soon as Apple officially launches the service in the Czech Republic, all our clients with corresponding phones or watches will be able to start using it.
We offer clients only Mastercard cards for payment, and they will of course support payment via Apple Pay."
J&T Bank
"We will not comment on media speculation about the launch of Apple Pay. We offer Mastercard payment cards."
Raiffeisen Bank
"Raiffeisenbank will only join the service in the second wave. So I don't have any more detailed information available at the moment."
mBank will also offer Apple Pay support to its clients in the first wave. Komerční banka should also be involved in the launch of the service, which has shown its interest several times in the past, but we have not received an official statement from the press center. We did not receive a response from Sberbank, ČSOB, UniCredit Bank and Fio banka.
Well, hooray, finally. It will be calm. Are there fifty articles about how I attached the phone to the terminal and the world will finally be complete??
Otherwise, no one has directly confirmed it. Perhaps only a bank for CS pensioners.
This is good news!
What about Raiffeisenbank, do you have information from them?
All pro-Apple sites are racing to add a card to the wallet today, I even show a photo of the wallet and apple pay application in the settings section, even though there is nothing like that yet, and the wallet application itself does not allow adding a card yet,,,at least I'll laugh,,
Confirmed! Does the Komerční banka application in the App Store already offer an application update using the Apple Pay service in the Czech Republic?