Apple Wallet - adding a new replacement debit card after reporting old card being stolen.

So, my wife and i had our bank cards stolen, as soon as we realized we locked the cards on our banking apps and immediately went to our nearest bank branch to cancel them, they cancelled both cards (separate accounts). All good so far, no transactions with stolen cards and new cards have arrived, used and activated with chip and pin.

The problem now begins....we have both tried to add our new cards to Apple wallet and the same error message comes up to contact our card issuer.

This has been done several times and every trick under the sun has been tried to rectify. A senior Apple engineer has reviewed it from his end and there are no issues.

Our bank has done the same and both cards are active therefore should add OK.

So, my view is that its too much of a coincidence to have two cards on separate accounts having the same error message on Apple wallet after both going through the same cancellation process on the same day.

I have added the replacement MasterCard credit card to the wallet with no issues at all. I know that this card comes from a separate card issuer than the Visa debit card.

Any thoughts would be gratefully appreciated as i have spent a total of 7 hours on the phone trying to rectify this issue!!