Apple Pay is a great option for those who want a secure way to pay for something, without the need to drag around a wallet – but what if it’s not working and you don’t have a backup? That happened to me the other day and I wasn’t able to pay for a train home and instead caught a far more expensive Uber so as to not risk a $200-$500 fare evasion fine.
In Australia, those living in NSW can use Apple Pay on any service provided by Transport for NSW.
After trialling the use of bankcards in lieu of an Opal Card back in 2017 on some ferries in the city, Apple Pay can now be used on buses, trains and ferries across the Sydney public transport network.
As the name implies, Apple Pay is only available on Apple devices. This includes iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and MacBook pro with TouchID.
To authenticate a payment through Apple Pay, you’ll either need to use FaceID or your fingerprint.
On an iPhone, this brings up a screen that looks similar to this:
But what that doesn’t show is for many cards, there’s the option to choose between Mastercard or Eftpos savings, or Visa or Eftpos savings (depending on your type of card).
If you excuse the not fantastic Canva job below, you can see there’s an on-screen option to tap either.
As I learned the hard way, having your card with ‘Eftpos SAV’ activated prevents you from using it on services that aren’t Eftpos. It was fine at Woolies, Coles, Zing – everywhere I was using an Eftpos machine – but online or for Transport for NSW services, the payment was returning an error.
Having ‘Visa’ toggled on fixed all of my problems (well, the ones I was having on Opal readers, at least).
Chances are if your Apple Pay is not working everywhere, but it is working for groceries, this could be why.
Other reasons Apple Pay might not be working include the service itself is down, you don’t have any available funds in your account, the terminal you’re trying to use it on doesn’t accept Apple Pay or your phone might need the obvious off and on again treatment.
Hope this saves you an expensive Uber trip!