A good four years after the launch of Apple Pay in the USA, the service has now also been announced for Germany.
Apple Pay requires an approved credit card and NFC-enabled payment terminals - the latter are already available in many stores. To register a credit card, it must be issued by a bank that supports Apple Pay.
Several banks have already announced that they will definitely support Apple Pay, but other financial institutions are still hesitating. Directly among them are Number 26, Deutsche Bank and American Express. The savings banks would prefer to see Apple release the NFC interface of the iPhones so that they can better market their own payment app.
How many customers will actually use Apple Pay in Germany is open - Germany is known for cash being the preferred means of payment, but it will probably take a few more years before you can pay contactlessly at the bakery.
Update 11/27/2018: although there are repeated reports that Apple Pay is already displayed on POS systems (e.g. at Aldi), there is a rumour that Apple itself cannot yet process payments via Apple Pay in its stores.
As soon as Apple Pay actually launches this week, I'm going to give it a try - although a few years after the launch in the USA, there should be no big surprises.
Update 03.03.2019: after some time with Apple Pay, in which I deposited a comdirect VISA card, I paid several times in the supermarket with Apple Pay - which worked smoothly.
Unfortunately my preferred credit card is not yet supported by Barclays - otherwise Apple Pay at least for me leads to me paying more with credit card. And at least so far this has worked every time. Unfortunately, there are not that many online shops where Apple Pay works, so I haven't been able to try it out there yet.
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