Apple Pay Makes Inroads In France

Apple hasn’t made much inroads in France with its Apple Pay service, given the fact that the country’s biggest banks still don’t support it. But that is slowly changing, judging from two announcements Tuesday (July 18) from Lydia and N26, the two financial companies based in France.

According to a news report in TechCrunch, Lydia, which is a peer-to-peer (P2P) mobile payment app that lets users send money to friends and family and last year launched a physical card, has added support for Apple Pay, which means users can add the Lydia card, which can be used in stores that accept Mastercard, to the Apple Pay wallet.  

Meanwhile N26, which is a German FinTech that is creating a bank from the ground up and is in the French market, will support Apple Pay. N26 already announced Apple Pay support in Italy and Spain earlier this summer. The report noted that Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, which operates several banking firms under the Crédit Mutuel brand, as well as Fortuneo and an upcoming bank aimed at young people dubbed Max, will support Apple Pay as well. Caisse d’Épargne/ Banque Populaire and Carrefour Banque also recently announced support for Apple Pay, noted the report.

While FinTechs are embracing the mobile payment method in France, big name banking firms, including BNP Paribas, Société Général, Crédit Agricole and La Banque Postale, haven’t announced support for the online payment method. The reasons why the main banks in France won’t support it are mired, but the report noted one of the reasons is that the banks don’t want to pay the fees associated with Apple Pay.

What’s more, in France everyone uses debit cards, making it hard for online payments to take off. The report noted that the banks in France are also working on Paylib, an alternative to Apple Pay. While Apple Pay may be slow to take off in France, a lot of banks in the U.K. have announced plans to support the digital payment method.