Apple Pay Already Works Abroad On Supported Nfc Terminals W Us Based Cards

Reader Beau Giles reports, “Apple Pay works anywhere there’s existing PayPass or payWave terminals – and in Australia we’ve got plenty of them…While Apple restricts cards to US issued cards, they do work with Apple Pay just fine elsewhere.”

Beau notes that Apple Pay appears to be based on the region set on a user’s device and is not necessarily tied to an iTunes account (although it does offer the option to use a card on file through an Apple ID). Users abroad can make Apple Pay settings appear by changing their region to United States in Settings>General>Language & Region>Region.

Apple Pay doesn’t yet support Australian cards issued by local banks, but reportedly works with supported US-based cards through MasterCard’s PayPass, Visa’s payWave or American Express’ ExpressPay terminals. It’s still unclear exactly what is required for a retailer to support the service (for instance a geo-location parameter could be enforced by Apple), and whether or not Apple Pay will work with all NFC payment terminals from supported partners, but it appears at least some terminals are already up and running with US-based cards abroad. That’s a good sign for those that plan to use Apple Pay abroad even before support is rolled out internationally.

Another reader in Canada sent over the video below showing Apple Pay working with NFC-equipped vending machine in Canada:

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9PRYphuCLc&feature=youtu.be&a]

We’ve reached out to Visa, Mastercard, and American Express for more information on supported terminals abroad.