OREANDA-NEWS. Ally Bank, the direct banking subsidiary of Ally Financial Inc. (NYSE: ALLY), today announced it is offering customers with debit cards access to Apple Pay®, a simple and secure way to pay for goods and services with a compatible Apple mobile device.

In participating stores, Apple Pay will work with iPhone® 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch®, upon availability. Within apps, Apple Pay is compatible with iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, iPad Air® 2 and iPad mini™ 3. Once a customer has entered their Ally Bank debit card information on a device, they will be ready to make payments with Apple Pay at supported merchants.

"Given the growing use of mobile devices, offering Apple Pay to our customers is yet another way we are making banking convenient and simple," said Diane Morais, chief executive officer and president of Ally Bank. "But we're not stopping there: our team is currently working on supporting two other mobile pay options – Android Pay® and Samsung Pay™ – to bring mobile payments services to a broader base of Ally Bank customers."

To pay at checkout, users simply hold their mobile device near a contactless reader and authorize the payment using a passcode or Touch ID®, and a subtle vibration and beep will confirm that the payment has been processed.

In addition to being easy to use, Apple Pay provides a secure form of payment. Since the card data is encrypted and not stored on Apple servers, it is inaccessible if the mobile device is either lost or stolen. In addition, the retailer or merchant never has direct access to a consumer's card details.

Android Pay and Samsung Pay support are expected to launch later this year.