Apple Pay Launched in Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and the UAE

Apple has launched its mobile payment platform Apple Pay in Finland, Denmark, Sweden, and the UAE. The company confirmed the arrival in a post on its developer page.

The Apple Pay mobile payment service is supports Nordea Group and St1 in Sweden and Finland. In Denmark, it supports Nordea Group and Jyske Bank. In the UAE, Apple Insider notes, citing the company's country specific Apple Pay page, the service can be used by both Visa and Mastercard card holders of the Emirates NBD, Mashreq Bank, HSBC, RAKBANK, Standard Chartered, and Emirates Islamic.

After its launch in 2014 in the US, Apple Pay has so far been launched in Australia, Canada, China, France, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the UK. The report speculates Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands being possible next launches, pointing to rumours and circumstantial evidence.

Apple Pay has yet to make its way to India. The company however may soon launch the service in the country, if a recent interview citing Apple's senior vice president Eddy Cue is to be believed. Cue said the company is looking at India's payments market, though a specific launch time frame was not shared.

Cue said the company desires to bring its Apple Pay mobile payments service in India. "Our head of Apple Pay, Jennifer Bailey, is here with me. And Apple Pay is something that we definitely want in India," Cue said.

But bringing Apple Pay to India isn't going to be easy, Cue added. "The challenge with payment mechanisms is that there isn't really a lot of global scale. You deal with individual markets at a time... but India is one of those markets where we hope to bring Apple Pay to," he said.

Written with inputs from IANS