Do you know if Apple Pay accepts prepaid cards or what cards work with Apple? Well, you are at the perfect place to find the answer to such a question.
Apple Pay provides the security of two-factor authentication and the convenience of contactless payments on POS terminals and in-app purchases. While prepaid cards are allowing you to streamline the budgeting of your finances. But does Apple Pay accept prepaid cards?
Apple Pay accepts a wide range of credit, debit, and prepaid cards issued by American and international financial institutions. But not all of them, as the support for any type of card depends on participation by the card issuer.
So, let’s get into details about why it is so, and how to use prepaid cards with Apple Pay.
Does Apple Pay accept prepaid cards?
As a general rule, Apple Pay accepts reloadable prepaid cards and even some non-reloadable prepaid gift cards issued by various financial institutions.
But you should not presume that just because your payment card is of that type that it will be accepted.
Your prepaid card could happen to not be accepted, though there are many more those which are accepted than those which are not. It depends on whether the card issuer provides support for Apple Pay.
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Does Apple Pay accept gift cards?
Apple Pay supports a limited number of prepaid gift cards issued by a certain number of financial institutions.
But not all of them. Such issuers practically always advertise support as the main selling point of their gift cards.
But the only certain way to find out is some prepaid gift cards are supported is to enquire with the issuer.
Does Apple Cash accept prepaid cards?
The prepaid cards that are accepted by Apple Pay can be used for loading your Apple Cash balance. But the transactions do not work in the opposite direction.
Funds available on Apple Cash can only be deposited to supported debit cards and bank accounts.
Why some prepaid cards can’t be used with Apple Pay?
The reason lies in the mechanism of how Apple Pay works. When you add a card to it, it sends the card information to the issuer of it.
If it is approved by the issuer a unique code is generated which replaces the card information.
This makes Apple Pay very secure, as your card information is not communicated over the internet every time you use it. But also require that the card issuer support this mechanism. If they do not support it, their card can’t be added.
Another potential obstacle is that the issuer needs to implement support for each and every type of card they offer to their customers.
Meaning that even if your bank’s credit or debit cards are accepted, prepaid cards potentially could not be.
Which prepaid cards can be added to Apple Pay?
As I’ve said above, a vast majority of reloadable prepaid cards can be added, but also a certain smaller number of prepaid gift cards.
Whether they can be added or not depends on whether the support for Apple Pay is provided by the card issuer.
Apple does make the effort to accept them all, but it doesn’t depend on their goodwill only.
How to check whether your card is supported?
There are two ways to check whether your prepaid card is accepted by Apple Pay. The first is to simply attempt to add it, and if it is not accepted it will be rejected.
The reason is that Apple Pay will send the authorization request to the issuer, and if it is rejected the card will not be added.
The other way is to check whether your card issuer is on the list of financial institutions with Apple Pay support.
If it is, you should also inquire with them whether their prepaid cards are supported or just credit and debit cards.
How to add a prepaid card to Apple Pay?
Adding your prepaid card to Apple Pay is very easy in just a few simple steps:
- Open the Wallet app on your device.
- Tap the plus sign in the top right corner of the main screen.
- Depending on the version of the Wallet app you will or won’t be asked to select the type of card you are adding.
- Position the card in front of your camera to scan the information from it or select the option to enter the required information manually.
- If any additional information is required by the card issuer you will be prompted to provide it, otherwise, you will get information on whether the card is accepted or not.
Where is my card info stored when I add it to Apple Pay?
What makes Apple Pay extremely secure is that your card details are not stored anywhere.
Instead, a Device Account Number (DAN) that is unique for your card and device combination is generated and stored in encrypted form in the Secure Element chip of your device.
When you are making payments, this DAN is sent to the card issuer for transaction authorization.
What is the best prepaid card for Apple Pay?
What cards work with Apple Pay? When it comes to Apple Pay, there are many lists of top XY prepaid cards to use with it, and all of those lists are wrong. The best prepaid cards for Apple Pay are all of those that are accepted, but the more important question is which prepaid card best suits your other needs besides Apple Pay support.
What to do if your prepaid card is not supported?
In case your prepaid card is not supported by Apple Pay, in other words, the issuer of it does not support Apple Pay you will not be able to use them in combination with each other.
But, very often those issuers provide an iOS app for you to use for making contactless payments with their cards.
So, you can use it instead of Apple Pay.
Conclusion
Reloadable prepaid cards offer many advantages to their owners, and Apple Pay has its own strengths on which iPhone users rely for making secure and contactless payments.
But can they work together, does Apple Pay Accept prepaid cards?
Most of the prepaid cards issued by various financial institutions are accepted by Apple Pay, but whether some particular one is accepted depends on whether its issuer supports this service.