Rumor: Apple Pay in testing for Russia and in talks for Taiwan and Kenya

According to a publication called Vedomosti, a source has told them that Apple Pay has been in testing for several weeks around various locations in Russia.  An official launch could happen as early as the first or second week in October.

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According to Digitimes.com, Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission is meanwhile taking applications from banks wanting to offer Apple Pay, DigiTimes said on Friday. The platform may not arrive in the country until the end of 2016 at the earliest however, and the Commission indicated that only credit cards will be supported at first.

CTBC Bank, Cathay United Commercial Bank, E.SUN Commercial Bank, and Taishin International Bank are expected to be initial launch partners.

Kenya’s biggest bank, KCB Group, is talking with several companies about digital payments through its new fintech group, CEO Joshua Oigara told Bloomberg. Apart from Apple, Facebook, Alibaba, Tencent, Google, Samsung, and PayPal are among potential partners.

If Apple does forge an agreement, it would mark Apple Pay’s first entry into Africa. Mobile payments are a firmly established technology in Kenya — Safaricom’s M-Pesa platform has been around since 2007. In 2014, M-Pesa transactions for the first 11 months of the year were valued at nearly half the country’s GDP.

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