Apple is currently negotiating with British banks to bring its NFC payments system to the United Kingdom. The aim is to bring this to the high street early to mid 2015.

The most difficult part of the negotiation is in regards to what consumer data Apple will be able to access. Some banks will be hesitant about this, but then again they wouldn’t want to miss out on the fastest-growing mobile payments platform.

Apple Pay is a system on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus that allows users to store their credit card information on the device, before swiping the device past an Apple Pay terminal to pay for something. Apple gets a small fee for each payment. Apple isn’t the first tech giant to introduce an NFC payments system. Google Wallet has been around since 2011, but Apple has a knack for making technology and features look cool. This could explain how, in the US, Apple Pay’s first full month of use had it account for 1% of all digital payments. Who knows what the statistics will look like come the end of December.

The UK isn’t the only region that Apple has set its sights on. It briefly advertised a job vacancy referring to Apple Pay as “a new and exciting area in Apple that is set to expand across Europe, Middle East, India and Africa.”

Source: Telegraph