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Although more of a financial service that works in conjunction with other mobile money apps, Apple Pay is widely available and used by iPhone users across Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas. We will be reviewing this global service to gain a better understanding of how it can be used to send money.
What is the Apple Pay App?
Apple Pay is a digital wallet and mobile payment solution that can be used on iOS apps, in-person and via the Safari browser. The Apple product launched on October 20th 2014: it is not available for Android users.
Apple Pay was designed to replace physical cards so you can use your Apple smartphone to pay for goods at the store. It works by adding a debit or credit card to your Wallet app, then you are good to go ahead and start making payments.
How Do I Get the Apple Pay App?
Apple Pay is not in fact the app you’ll be using for payment; this will be the Wallet app. Apple Wallet will already be installed on your device as standard, so there is no need to download it.
Can I Make International Transfers With the Apple Pay App?
No, the Apple Pay feature is only used for making payments, using your smartphone, at physical stores. Therefore, it cannot be used for making international payments.
How Does the Apple Pay App Perform?
Since Apple Pay is not technically an app, we will discuss the performance of Apple's Wallet app instead.
User Interface: The intuitive nature of the Wallet app has gone through rigorous testing, which means that you can expect the same quality as the rest of the Apple experience. There is a big emphasis on providing a logical pathway for using the feature you need. Therefore, you’ll learn how to use the app fairly quickly during the first time.
Speed and Bugs: The app is optimized to function quickly and responds well to interactions. Judging from the overwhelmingly positive customer reviews, you are unlikely to experience glitches or bugs while using the Wallet app.
How to Send Money With the Apple Pay App
It’s not possible to send money with Apple Pay, but you can make payments using the Wallet app. You’ll need to register a bank card first, to fund the payments, before you can use your digital wallet to pay vendors.
To use Apple Pay at physical stores your smartphone needs to have the NFC feature activated. Once this is enabled, simply hover your phone over the card reader as you would with a contactless card.
How Long Does It Take to Send Through the Apple Pay App?
It’s not possible to send money with the Apple Pay app, but by using other mobile money apps like Wise and Skrill, the process takes just a few minutes. The first time you make a transaction you should allocate 5-10 minutes to learn the steps. Also, the speed of making a transaction increases if you are sending funds to the same recipient, since the details will be saved and auto-populated.
Can You Add Money Directly to the Apple Pay App?
It’s not possible to add funds to the Apple Pay app, since it’s used for making payments in stores. You’ll need a source debit or credit card from a bank or other payment processor.
Other Apps to Send Money Abroad
Summary
Overall, Apple users love using the Apple Pay system to make payments in stores that accept contactless cards. All you need to do is place the Apple smartphone over the card reading device to complete a transaction.
In the future, Apple could add a way of sending money internationally, whether it’s to other Apple users or bank account. However, for now you’ll need to use alternative service providers: check out our pick of the top 10 money transfer companies here.
