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By Eric Auchard
BERLIN, June 8 (Reuters) - Apple Inc plans tointroduce its mobile payments service to the UK next month,supported by major banks and high-street retailers and theoperator of the London Underground, the technology company saidon Monday.
Apple Pay will be available in 250,000 locations across theUK when it launches in July, making it more widely availablethan when it was first introduced in the United States inOctober, the company said.
The payments service allows consumers using the latest Applephones, tablets and smartwatches to buy goods or services byholding the device up to contactless readers installed bymerchants.
Apple executives speaking at the company's annual developerconference in San Francisco also introduced improvements toApple Watch and a new streaming music service it will offerworldwide starting on June 30 for $9.99 (6.52 pounds) a month.
The consumer electronics giant said eight of the mostpopular UK banks would support Apple Pay when it opens nextmonth, with more banks to follow in the autumn.
It said well-known retailers Boots, the UK pharmacy unit ofWalgreens Boots Alliance ; Costa Coffee, a unit ofWhitbread ; department store Marks and Spencer and supermarket Waitrose have all lined up to support Apple Pay.Several major airlines, travel agents, hotels and taxi firmshave also signed up, Apple said.
Commuters and tourists using the London Underground will beable to swipe their Apple phones at station turnstiles to payfor tickets, Apple said. Already, existing U.S. Apple Pay usersvisiting London can pay for trips on the Tube, according toofficials of the network's operator, Transport for London.
Britain is expected to be fertile territory for Apple Pay.Contactless payments have surged in popularity in recent years,while the U.S. market remains in the early stages of contactlessadoption by consumers. Analysts say contactless payments in theUK first caught on with consumers using pay-and-go cards on theTube.
Apple said Apple Pay will be supported by more than 70percent of credit and debit cards in use in the UK. In separatestatements, credit card giants Visa Europe, Mastercard and American Express confirmed they would support ApplePay in the UK.
MasterCard said it is working with several banks, includingHSBC Holdings, RBS/Natwest and Santander, to make their MasterCard credit, debit or prepaidcards work with Apple Pay. Nationwide Building Society also saidit would support the Apple payments service. Bank of Scotland,Coutts, Halifax, Lloyds Bank, MBNA, M&S Bank and TSB Bank areamong those that will join in autumn.
Unlike the consumer electronics business, where Appleregularly releases new computers or phones in dozens ofcountries at once, there is no such thing as a unified paymentsmarket, slowing expansion to further markets (1 British pound = $1.5339) (Additional reporting by Julia Love in San Francisco)
