Apple 's digital wallet has been available in our country since last summer but does not "accept" Greek cards. Two Greek banks will support Apple Pay by Easter, Alpha Bank and Eurobank, while the rest of the systemic banks are expected to follow suit.
digital wallet has been available in our country since last summer, however, the only way to use it until now was with foreign bank cards, such as Revolut, N26, etc.
It is recalled that the wallet is an application that the user downloads to his mobile phone -Apple Pay if he has an iPhone and Google Pay if he has an Android device- and integrates all his debit and credit cards there. Thus, through the application he can make transactions at POS with the card of his choice, without having to carry the cards in physical form (plastic body). In this way, transactions become much safer and easier to use, while the user experience is upgraded.
Greek banks have not yet implemented the tokenization of their cards so that they can be integrated into Apple's wallet, and a major reason for this is the high fees imposed by the global technology giant. Digital wallets, however, are considered the next stage of electronic money transactions and, after Google's decision not to land in our country via Google Pay, Apple's wallet was the only way for Greek banks.
Banking sources with knowledge of the matter report that wallets are used by fewer users but carry out a higher volume of transactions per person. Already, Greek banks are investing in the creation of their own wallet in order to integrate the Visa and Mastercard cards they issue into it. Moreover, given that there is a Google gap for users with Android, both Alpha Bank and Eurobank are working feverishly to launch their own “wallet”.
The downside, of course, to these solutions is that one must use an electronic wallet per bank, unlike Google and Apple wallets where one can integrate all cards and use them for their transactions - provided, of course, that they are implemented in each country.
Source: insider.gr
