U.K. bank Barclays has confirmed that it will launch Apple Pay within the next 45 to 60 days, based on a two-week-old email dated January 12, suggesting the bank will support the iPhone-based mobile payments service by no later than March 28.
The launch date was released by Barclays CEO of Personal and Corporate Banking Ashok Vaswani in what appears to be a legitimate email sent to customer Oli Foster-Burnell. The executive has emailed customers about Apple Pay in the past.
Barclays is the only financial institution among the “Big Four” banks in the U.K. that has yet to adopt Apple Pay. The country’s participating issuers include the Bank of Scotland, First Direct, Halifax, HSBC, Lloyds Bank, M&S Bank, MBNA, Nationwide, NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander, Tesco Bank, TSB and Ulster Bank.
Apple Pay hit the U.K. in July 2015 at more than 250,000 points of sale across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Up to this point, Barclays has been the most notable holdout among the banks. Barclays itself serves over 48 million customers.
If you’ve had a chance to use Apple Pay in the United Kingdom, please let us know about your experience in the comments.