Walmart Subsidiary Asda Testing Apple Pay in U.K. - MacRumors
Skip to Content

Walmart Subsidiary Asda Testing Apple Pay in U.K.

While its parent company Walmart remains one of the most notable Apple Pay holdouts in the United States, British supermarket chain Asda now appears to be testing the mobile payments service at select locations in the United Kingdom.

ASDA
The supermarket chain, which has 626 stores across the U.K., recently confirmed on Twitter that Apple Pay is something it is "currently trialling in a few of our stores," but it remains unclear if the testing will lead to a wider rollout in the future.

A few Asda customers have recently tweeted about the newly enabled Apple Pay support at superstore locations in Aberdeen, Scotland and Ferring, a small village located about 60 miles southwest from London, England.

As recently as August 12, a support representative tweeted that Asda does not currently accept Apple Pay, but that it does accept contactless payments in some of its stores. Apple Pay generally works where contactless payments are accepted, but some retailers have specific policies against accepting Apple Pay.

In 1999, Asda was purchased by Walmart, which recently completed a nationwide launch of its own QR code-based mobile payments solution Walmart Pay in the United States. Walmart was initially committed to the Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) consortium and its now indefinitely postponed payments service CurrentC.

In related news, Clydesdale Bank, Yorkshire Bank, and digital banking service B introduced Apple Pay support for cardholders in the U.K. last week.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay
Tag: Walmart

Popular Stories

iOS 26

iOS 26.4 Adds Two New Features to CarPlay

Tuesday March 24, 2026 1:55 pm PDT by
iOS 26.4 was released today, and it includes a couple of new features for CarPlay: an Ambient Music widget and support for voice-based chatbot apps. To update your iPhone 11 or newer to iOS 26.4, open the Settings app and tap on General → Software Update. CarPlay will automatically offer the new features so long as the iPhone connected to your vehicle is running iOS 26.4 or later....
Apple Business hero

Apple Unveils 'Apple Business' All-in-One Platform

Tuesday March 24, 2026 8:53 am PDT by
Apple today announced Apple Business, a new all-in-one platform that unifies device management, productivity tools, and customer outreach features. The service is designed to be a consolidated replacement for several of Apple's existing business-focused offerings, including Apple Business Essentials, Apple Business Manager, and Apple Business Connect. It provides organizations with a single...
AirPods Pro Firmware Feature

Apple Releases New Firmware for AirPods Pro 3, AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4

Tuesday March 24, 2026 12:31 pm PDT by
Apple today released new firmware for the AirPods Pro 2, AirPods Pro 3, and the AirPods 4. The firmware has a version number of 8B39, up from 8B34 on the AirPods Pro 3, 8B28 on the AirPods Pro 2, and 8B21 on the AirPods 4. There is no word on what's included in the firmware, but Apple has a support document with limited notes. Most updates are limited to bug fixes and performance...

Top Rated Comments

125 months ago
What does ASDA stand for? Is this an acronym or is that a real word that means something to the british people? Because I am only aware of the American Sleep Disorder Association. And hopefully these stores don't put people to sleep :D
From Wikipedia...

In 1965, when the Asquith brothers approached Associated Dairies to run the butchery departments within their small store chain, a merger was proposed. So they joined together with Noel Stockdale, Arthur Stockdale's son, to form a new company, Asquith + Dairies = Asda (capitalised from 1985).
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
125 months ago
Supermarkets have been slow at implementing Contactless. Tesco has only just recently started accepting it. Sainsbury's don't support it yet. ASDA have a very small trial. It's only Waitrose and M&S that have been offering contactless for some time (and Apple Pay since it launched).
At first I thought it was about data grabbing on your shopping habits, but everyone has a loyalty card to do that these days, so you don't really need the payment method to do that.

You'd think stores would want to make it as easy as possible for people to spend as much as possible in the way they prefer.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
125 months ago
It's also important to know, unlike in the USA where launch partners are needed as the adoption of contactless isn't as common... ASDA will be supporting *all* contactless payments.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
125 months ago
Though the 123 card would give you 4p per £4 rather than the 1p Tesco give!



Interesting, thanks for the update!
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/walmart-subsidiary-asda-testing-apple-pay-in-u-k.1989505/page-2#post-23276449
True. But I'm using my Tesco Bank card more as I save my vouchers for Christmas :).
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
125 months ago
Several in the same area?
SE England
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
125 months ago
The Tesco superstore where I work in Staffordshire had contactless terminals installed last night and I've used apple pay a few times today
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)