Paying with Apple Pay on Shopee no longer costs you your vouchers. Apple Pay payments on Shopee now qualify for the platform's applicable discounts and vouchers, ManilaShaker reported on August 28. Before this change, Shopee users reported that picking Apple Pay — or Google Pay — at checkout would remove eligible vouchers and discounts from their order. Shoppers had to choose between the faster payment method and the lower price. That trade-off is now gone, at least for Apple Pay.
Shopee has accepted Apple Pay since the service launched in the Philippines on August 4, when Apple named the shopping platform among its local launch partners. But for shoppers who rely on vouchers, there was little reason to use it while promos did not apply.
What changed at Shopee checkout
The problem was simple and frustrating. A cart would show a voucher applied, but switching the payment method to Apple Pay or Google Pay wiped the discount from the total. The workaround was to fall back to ShopeePay, cards entered manually, or cash on delivery. With the update, an order paid through Apple Pay keeps the platform vouchers and discounts it qualifies for.
As of publication, only one outlet has reported the change, and Shopee has not posted an official announcement spelling out the new voucher rules. It is also not yet confirmed whether Google Pay checkouts get the same treatment — the report covers Apple Pay only. If a specific voucher matters to your order, check the final total before you tap Place Order.
How to pay with Apple Pay on Shopee
You first need a credit or debit card from a supported bank added to the Wallet app on your iPhone or another Apple device. After that, Shopee's own Help Center lists a short checkout flow:
- Open Payment Option on the checkout page and select Apple Pay.
- Confirm your selection, then place the order.
- Tap Pay with Apple Pay.
- Double-click the side button and confirm with Face ID, Touch ID, or your Apple ID password.
Apple Pay works on iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, and Mac. Apple says your actual card number is never stored on the device or on its servers. Each card instead gets an encrypted Device Account Number kept in the phone's Secure Element (a dedicated security chip), so Shopee never sees your real card details.
Supported banks — and the odd MariBank gap
Only four banks issue cards that work with Apple Pay in the Philippines so far: Chinabank, GoTyme Bank, Metrobank, and UnionBank. We covered the setup steps and eligible cards when Apple Pay went live in the Philippines.
One name is still missing: MariBank. The digital bank belongs to Sea Limited, the same group that owns Shopee, yet its cards cannot be added to Apple Wallet. In other words, Shopee's own sister bank still cannot use the payment method Shopee now fully supports.
Beyond banks, acceptance keeps spreading. foodpanda, Jollibee, and Rustan's take Apple Pay in their apps and websites, and Maya Business is enabling it for more than 5,000 additional online merchants. In physical stores, the list already includes Ayala Malls, Power Mac Center, Abenson, WalterMart Supermarket, Globe, and Smart, among others.
Why voucher support matters before the 9.9 sale
Vouchers are central to how Filipinos shop on Shopee. Free-shipping vouchers, ₱-off seller vouchers, and platform discounts routinely decide whether an order is worth placing. A payment method that silently voided them was, in practice, unusable — no matter how convenient the double-click checkout felt. Fixing eligibility ahead of September, when Shopee traditionally runs its 9.9 sale, means iPhone owners can keep their promos and still skip typing card details for every order.
It also caps a busy month for contactless payments in the country. Smart now accepts Apple Pay for prepaid load and postpaid bills, and GCash switched on Tap to Pay on iPhone this week. Less than a month after launch, Apple Pay is moving from a store novelty to something Filipinos can use across daily spending — groceries, load, bills, and now the country's biggest online marketplace with vouchers intact.
