Q: Apple Pay on Watch Requires Passcode Always On?

You should only need to enter the Passcode when you first put the Watch on. If the Watch keeps locking - therefore requiring you to keep using the passcode - then (1) it is probably being worn too loosely or (2) there is something wrong with the wrist detection sensor. (Generally the too loose issue.)

But yes - to use Passbook cards - you need to have a Passcode. All other functions of the Watch will work without having a Passcode.

Hmmm, not sure the original question was quite answered -- maybe I'm wrong on that. But so far as I can see, Yes! Apple arrogantly erases your credit card information from Apple Pay whenever you take your passcode off, thus rendering the whole system infinitely more tedious to use than a mere credit card because daily (or more) you have to re-enter all the credit card information. (Kvetch warning ... Absolute inappropriate nannying by Apple.  Until Apple returns adult control over our lives, Apple pay goes unused in my Apple ecosystem.)

Are you saying when you go to sleep at night and take off your watch you lose all your Apple Pay cards? If yes then something is wrong with your Watch. I take mine of at night and the next day after putting it back on and entering the passcode all of my cards are still there.

Not sure what you mean.  Apple requires the passcode option to be activated in order to use Apple Pay.  The passcode needs only to be entered once, when the watch is put on the wrist, and remains active as long as the watch is in contact with the wrist without re-entering the passcode.

Removing the watch from the wrist does NOT remove all the credit card data - it only requires the passcode to be entered again in order to use them.  Removing the passcode option from the watch (in other words, setting the option to never require a passcode to be entered) is what removes the credit card data from ApplePay on the watch.

It seems to me that folk have misread Mr. Baron's question. Unless I am the one mis-reading his post -- perhaps I am -- his third sentence ("If I disable...) complains that when someone actively removes the Passcode lock Apple removes the credit card from Apple Pay, and you must got through the "tedious" task of re-adding the card when turning the Passcode back on and desiring to use Apple Pay.  The same is true for the iPhone:  actively removing the Passcode removes the credit cards and banks notify you that your card has been removed from Apple Pay. I've found no work-around for this seeming unwarranted nannyism by Apple.

No, you misread his post and the followup.

There is no workaround for the passcode and Apple Pay on the Watch or on the iPhone and there never will be. Why would one want to put access to their credit cards on their Apple Watch and then turn off the security protecting it? I know you can't fix stupid but if Apple had not provided this default no banks or merchants would have signed on to Apple Pay. If you provided an option then the first one to not turn it on (or forget to turn it back on), have their device stolen and the cards used would immediately try to take legal action against Apple and then every bank and merchant would drop it. This isn't "unwarranted nannyism" this is sound and reasonable security design and in keeping with everything Apple has done for almost 40 years. If you see it this way you should sell your Apple devices and go with something else.

And yes it is stupid and careless to use financial instruments on a device with no security.

Well, I'm sorry for your vitriolism and hardly see why.  I don't think I misread Mr. Baron's original post but am pretty sure others have.

Responsibility for our finances ultimately fall on the individual, herself or himself. If I choose to take off the Passcode for good reasons then Apple should allow that choice and I take responsibility for that. (My wallet, for example, has twenty-five times the credit card value as the one card on my iPhone, and I have no Passcode lock on my wallet.) This indeed is nannyism:  Apple acting in loco parentis.

As for leaving Apple -- what comment is that?  Surely the choices are not binary -- approve of Apple's Apple Pay process or leave Apple -- and better thinking is needed in a postmodern world.

Read his second post, he is referring to a setting on the Watch that was causing him to repeatedly enter the passcode.

No, the choice in this case is binary. If Apple makes using a passcode optional you will see an exodus of banks using the system. Period. I believe Google Wallet and others also have this requirement probably as a result of discussions with banks and merchants. As I've said before this is the way Apple has always operated whether you want to call it nannyism or something else. They aren't likely to change, the banks aren't likely to change nor are the merchants. What you are saying is you think Apple's philosophy is to act as a nanny, or in loco parentis and on that I totally agree with you. And they always have. And they won't change.

The real problem is that when the watch is off your wrist, you cannot check any other function; such as messages, or use any of the apps, unless you type the password. In essence, you cannot use the watch for anything other than to tell time, when it is off your wrist, unless you key in the password.

It would be better if the password was required only for occasions when you are trying to use apple pay, not for any function that depends on an app.