Apple is announcing a new integration today that is powered by the United Kingdom’s Open Banking API. The Wallet app will now be able to show the user’s current account balance from their bank, as well as a history of deposits and payments. The balance will also be shown inline when buying something with Apple Pay, helping users be more financially aware about whether they can responsibly afford the purchase.
This integration is rolling out as part of an upcoming iOS 17 developer beta. It will be available to a subset of Wallet app users in the UK, who have an Apple Pay credit or debit card associated with a supporting bank or pay via Pay iO
Supporting banks in this initial rollout include Barclays, Lloyds, RBS and Starling. Users can securely authorize the integration through the Wallet app, using a familiar OAuth flow. As you might expect, Apple’s usual privacy standards apply. Any data retrieved from this API is kept solely on the user’s device, and not stored on Apple’s servers.
International Apple users are used to bemoaning US-only features; it’s rare for the reverse to happen. However, Apple is launching this feature exclusively in the UK due to the existence of an interoperable open banking standard in the country. The path to getting a feature like this in other regions, like the US, is much less clear.
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