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German Sparkassen-Card users can now use Apple Pay with their cards

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What you need to know

  • German Sparkassen-Card users can now take advantage of contactless payments via Apple Pay.
  • Banks have partnered with Girocard to make it happen.
  • Credit cards were the only Apple Pay option before this move.

After months of credit cards being the only Apple Pay option in Germany, users can now add their Sparkassen-Card – a form of debit card – to the Wallet app on their devices. That brings Apple Pay support to the card for the first time.

Spotted by iphone-ticker, the change comes following a partnership with Girocard.

The savings banks are now also offering Apple Pay in conjunction with the Girocard. The debit card, known as the "Sparkassen-Card", can now be stored in the Apple Wallet, just like the institute's credit cards were previously. This means that savings bank customers can now also use the "most popular card in Germany" with Apple Pay.

Credit card support in Germany came about just before last Christmas but debit cards were left out in the cold. Debit card support had been touted back then, but it's taken until almost September for all the required ducks to be put into their relevant rows.

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.