UK begins accepting Apple Pay, Google Pay

LONDON: The UK government has started accepting Apple Pay and Google Pay for some of its online consumer services.

The government launched its online payments platform GOV. UK Pay for services with credit and debit cards in 2016 and, so far, more than 2.9 million transactions have been made.

The Minister for Implementation Oliver Dowden announced on Sunday that the government will now allow payments to be made with mobile phones through Apple Pay and Google Pay.

“We’re focused on making access to government services as easy as possible. And introducing mobile payment to GOV.UK Pay will also make transactions more secure,” Dowden said in a statement.