Unable to add card to Apple Wallet on iPhone

It’s the fraud issue. When you attempt to add a card to Apple Wallet, the first stop is the Payment Network Operator (Mastercard, Visa, American Express etc.). They must verify your card and identity. If you pass, the issuing bank will receive your information and must authorize adding the card. Your bank sends the authorization to Apple and a dynamic payment token is added to your Wallet, which represents your card during transactions.

From what you’re describing, the Payment Network Operator (PNO) is declining your card. This is probably due to the past fraud on their network. Your bank, probably the fraud team, will need to contact the PNO and have the fraud alert removed from your account.

The vast majority of banks will refuse to contact PNO or tell you to do it. The PNO won’t reveal the details to you because over the phone they can’t verify you are you. Your bank can because they use 2FA to verify you and your device. The PNO can’t take that extra, but necessary step, to verify you and the device. If the bank won’t do it, it can be up to year from the date of fraud occurrence for it to be lifted off your account.

There is a second but remote possibility, do you use a VPN or are you currently out of the US?

OK, my understanding is the removal of the fraud alerts and all the co-ordination of the parties involved, is about 30 days or slightly longer. The clock starts when you first try to add your card to the Wallet.

When you first try to add the card, Apple is alerted to the potential fraud risk when the PNO rejects the card. Apple will keep the alert on for what is estimated to be 30 to up to 60 days (very rarely that long). However, any subsequent attempts to add the card will usually result in the 30+ day clock being reset.

In the meantime, your bank, PNO and Token Service Provider must sync up their approval systems to not reject the card. This process doesn’t really take 30 days, but banks want to be assured as possible that you’re not a scammer/fraudster. They evidently feel that 30 days or so is sufficient time and the parties involved are willing to accept the fraud risk after 30 days.

Some members have reported going directly into a bank branch, showing identification to the manager and the manager contacting their fraud team and the message filtering to Apple. This doesn’t speed up the process, but some members saying it only to a few days to be resolved.