HSBC UK today accidentally revealed the release date of Apple Pay in the United Kingdom in a tweet, which has since then been deleted.
Responding to a tweet about the potential launch date of Apple Pay in the U.K.,@HSBC_UK replied that the service will be launching this Tuesday (i.e. on July 14th). The social media team of the bank, however, was quick to realise their mistake and deleted the tweet soon after.
This date matches up perfectly with what previous reports have stated about the launch of Apple’s NFC based mobile payment service in the country.
At launch though, Apple Pay will be severely limited in the U.K. with a cap of £20 per transaction. This cap will then be increased to £30 in September. While it will be possible for users to do higher value transaction through Apple Pay in the U.K., it will require merchants and retailers to update their Point-of-Sale terminals. Apple Pay will be supported by eight of the major banks in United Kingdom, except for Barclay’s.
Apple will not be rolling out any softwareupdate to enable Apple Pay for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus owners in the U.K. Instead, the service will be automatically enabled from the company by flipping a switch on its server.
