Make ICA Banken Work With Apple Pay (2023 Guide)

Long-story short:
You can add Apple Pay to your ICA Banken Mastercard using Curve. Get €6 after your first transaction when you apply for the Curve card using my link. Read my Curve review here.

ICA Banken Card

I cover the ICA Banken Mastercard in my guide Best Student Credit Cards in Sweden. Overall, I really liked this card while I used it, as I always bought at ICA during my student time. It has great discounts on groceries, and you can save quite some money on everyday spending.

However, one of the main things I don’t like about this card is that they don’t offer native support for Apple Pay. The card is issued by ICA Banken, and they have stated that they don’t have an interest in following Apple Pay yet, which is unfortunate.

BUT… there is a workaround, using Curve.

What is Curve?

The solution is to get the Curve (Curve App/Card), which is not a credit card, it is just a card aggregator, and it’s free. Read more about Curve in this post. In short: Curve works as a digital wallet, but with the exception that you also get a physical card, and it has several other great features such as cashback and go-back-in-time.

Curve is free, but you can upgrade to better (paid) options if you want to connect more than 2 cards.

Curve lets you connect any other Visa and MasterCard to it, and then just use Curve for payments. Then, the transactions are forwarded to the right active card (which you choose from the app). It is like a credit-card firewall, which is also great for security. Since they also pass along the merchant code, you get points on all your purchases, as if you’d have done it with the original card.

The amazing part is that Curve works with Apple Pay!

You can connect your ICA Banken Mastercard to Curve, then pay anywhere with your Curve card, and the transactions

Add Apple Pay to your ICA card (step by step):

1. Get your ICA Banken MasterCard.
2. Get Curve (free). Use my link if you want to get €6 for FREE after your first transaction.
3. Once you receive the physical Curve card, activate it.
4. Connect your ICA Banken Mastercard to Curve
   1. Open the app.
   2. Go to your Wallet and scroll to the right. Click on (+) Add a New Card
   3. Scan your ICA card with the camera, or fill in the manual details.
   4. Validate the card (either using BankID or with a small transaction).
5. Add Curve to Apple Pay
   1. Go to your Apple Wallet on your phone.
   2. Click on the (+) icon on the top right, to add a new card
   3. Follow the instructions by either scanning the Curve physical card or entering the numbers manually.
   4. Wait for the confirmation that says “Mastercard Curve Card” is ready for Apple Pay.
6. Set the ICA Mastercard as active on the Curve App
   1. Open the Curve App
   2. Go to your Wallet (center icon on the top bottom bar)
   3. Scroll until you see the ICA card
   4. Tap on the card icon, “tap to select & pay”. The card will become active and will have the curve logo overlaid.

Here are some pictures of the steps, instead of my ICA card, I’m connecting my SAS Mastercard, but the process will be exactly the same.

That’s it

Now you are all set! Have fun spending with your Curve card through Apple Pay. I find it very convenient, so that I can go out just with my phone and have all my cards (or, worst case, just carry my physical Curve card with me).

Remember you can get €6 for FREE after your first transaction if you order the card with my link.

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