Most banks have been quick to embrace Apple Pay, yet Barclays has been oddly hesitant. However, if you're both an Apple and a Barclays customer then your wait for contactless smartphone payments might almost be over: the bank has confirmed its plans to support the service from early next year.
In an email response to a customer complaint Barclays CEO Ashok Vaswani stated: "We have signed up for Apple Pay and will launch it very early in the New Year. We truly value your custom and hope that you continue to bank with us particularly since we are launching this shortly."
While that still doesn't give us an exact launch date it sounds like we could see Apple Pay support from Barclays in as little as three or four months.
Eleven UK banks already support Apple Pay and it's not entirely clear why Barclays is taking so long, though it could simply be that it was more focused onits own contactless payment system, which is expected to launch on Android in November.