This week, Octopus in Hong Kong has now started to support Apple Pay as a method of, well using the service. Octopus, like Suica in Japan has been deeply integrated into iOS and Apple Pay.

Octopus is the most popular transit card in Hong Kong, it works like the Oyster card here in the UK but shares most of its similarities with Suica in Japan.

Customers in Hong Kong, starting this week can now add an Octopus card to the Wallet app and use Express Transit, which means all you need to do is hold the iPhone or Apple Watch next to the reader, even if the device is locked and the authorisation will go through.

The great thing about Express Transit is, while it works with standard “Transit” cards, it also works with debit and credit cards and due to how NFC works on newer iPhone models, the dedicated Express Transit card can still work for up to five hours after the iPhone has run out of battery. This works on iPhone XS, iPhone XR and iPhone 11 & iPhone 11 Pro.

For existing users of the Octopus card, the option to replace the physical card with a virtual one is given and any remaining credit and services will be transferred ove. Users who don’t have one, can sign up for a virtual one within the Wallet app on iOS.