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Apple Pay launches in France

Apple Pay is now available in France, the service's third European market since launching in the US in 2014.
Written by Liam Tung, Contributing Writer
pretapplepaydesktop.jpg

After launching in the UK and Switzerland, France is now Apple Pay's third European market.

Image: Pret a Manger

Apple has finally launched its mobile payments service Apple Pay in France, bringing the number of countries it supports to eight.

According to Apple's French website, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch owners will be able to use Apple Pay with Visa and MasterCard credit and debit cards issued by Banque Populaire, Carrefour Banque, Caisse d'Epargne, and Ticket Restaurant. Payments using Apple Pay are limited to €300, accordion to Caisse d'Epargne. Apple has also indicted that cards from Boon and Orange will soon support Apple Pay too.

Apple lists 14 French merchants that accept Apple Pay, alongside its own retail outlets. According to Visa, consumers in France will be able to use Apple Pay at 400,000 merchant locations where contactless payments are available.

Rumours surfaced in February that Apple was planning to launch Apple Pay in France at some point in the first half of 2016. Apple confirmed at WWDC in June that it was planning to launch the service in France and Hong Kong shortly.

With France on board, Apple Pay now covers three countries in Europe, including the UK where it launched last year, and Switzerland which became the second European market for Apple Pay only a fortnight ago.

The mobile payment service is also supposed to launch in Spain sometime this year. However, Apple was beaten to the mark by Samsung, which spearheaded its European arrival of Samsung Pay there last month. Apple is yet to arrive in other key European markets such as Germany, Italy, and the Nordics.

Since launching Apple Pay in the US in 2014, Apple has rolled out the payment service to Australia, Canada, China, and Singapore.

Apple Devices that support Apple Pay include the iPhone 6S, iPhone 6S Plus, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone SE, the Apple Watch, iPad Pro, iPad Air 2, iPad mini 4, and iPad mini 3.

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