Launch Of Apple Pay In China Causes Service Issues

Apple Inc. AAPL's launch of its mobile payment system, Apple Pay, in China appears to be off to a rough start. Related Link: Apple Pay Reportedly Enters China, And France Could Be Next According to China-based Caixin, many users had trouble setting up the new service which went live on Thursday. "It kept telling me the phone 'cannot connect to Apple Pay' or the verification for the card is not available when I was linking a bankcard," Duan Ge, a 31-year-old employee of a film production company told the publication. Apple Pay is limited to users in China that own an iPhone 6 or 6S. The company also has 19 major banks as partners in China, including the country's largest lender, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. In a separate report, Cult Of Mac reported that China's banks will pay Apple around 0.07 percent of each transaction, more than half of the 0.15 percent of each purchase Apple collects from banks in the U.S. Nevertheless, despite a rough start in China, 38 million bank cards were registered in the country within 12 hours of launch. Shares of Apple were trading higher by around 0.30 percent after nearly 1 hour of trading on Monday.