What's New in Payments

Major banks, retailers and fintechs to support rollout of national QR payments and rewards system in Australia

Mobile phone showing Eftpos eQR-branded QR code

Commonwealth Bank of Australia and National Australia Bank as well as supermarket chains Coles and Woolworths and fintechs Azupay, Beem It and Merchant Warrior have confirmed they will support the rollout of the national QR payments and rewards platform developed by Australia’s Eftpos payments system... More



What's New in Payments

Australian public hearing considers case for regulatory controls to ensure payment apps get access to smartphone NFC technology

Government of Australia logo

An Australian parliamentary committee has held a public hearing at which it heard evidence from representatives of leading Australian banks, payment services providers and other financial bodies on regulatory issues including whether companies such as Apple should be mandated to allow third-party payment apps access to a smartphone’s NFC chip... More





Transit Ticketing Today

Sydney extends Opal transit card benefits to contactless and mobile payments users

Savings for commuters using contactless payments — Commonwealth Bank of Australia — “Commuters using contactless payments will now also receive Opal travel benefits, including: Daily, weekly and Sunday travel caps in line with Opal caps; Weekly travel reward (half price after eight trips); The Opal transfer discount; Off-peak pricing for train travel… The trial is also extending to the Sydney bus network in a staged roll-out over the coming months.”


What's New in Payments

CBA builds location tracking security into mobile banking app

CBA app wants your location, biometrics in name of security — CIO Australia — “If we see a transaction coming out of Hong Kong but we know from a customer’s phone they’re in Melbourne or Sydney: straight away that gives us an opportunity to spot a discrepancy and block it straight away… If we’re not sure we’ll pop into the app with a question in real time and we ask the customer to help us, and they can swipe or click to say yep I’m comfortable with this or no this is something I don’t recognise.”


What's New in Payments

Commonwealth Bank reports ‘dramatic increase’ in mobile payments due to Apple Pay

Digital wallet payments surge on Apple Pay: CBA — The Sydney Morning Herald — “‘Since we’ve introduced Apple Pay, we’ve seen the number of wallet transactions that are linked to a card increase 2.7 times. So it’s really increased quite dramatically since we’ve introduced Apple Pay for our consumer customers,’ said Sam Itzcovitz, CBA’s general manager of commerce solutions, business customer solutions.”





What's New in Payments

Australian banks launch Beem It P2P payments app

Big bank-backed Beem It launches Aussie payments app — ZDNet — “The Commonwealth Bank, NAB, and Westpac joined forces to create Beem It, allowing the real-time transfer of funds… The app enables sending and receiving money, with an interface reminiscent of a social media app… ‘It’s using Eftpos, and Visa debit card payment rails,’ Beem It chief product and development officer Deepesh Banerji said.”


What's New in Payments

Commonwealth Bank of Australia adds support for Samsung Pay

Samsung Pay now available for Commonwealth Bank customers — Commonwealth Bank of Australia — “Commonwealth Bank customers will now have access to Samsung’s contactless payments platform, Samsung Pay… Today’s announcement follows CBA’s partnership with Google in November to offer Android Pay on compatible devices at almost 800,000 stores across Australia. CBA customers have also been able to make payments on the go with Fitbit and Garmin’s new payment-enabled smartwatches.”


Commonwealth Bank introduces chatbot that can answer 200 banking and payments questions

Commonwealth Bank launches chatbot named Ceba — Commonwealth Bank of Australia — “Commonwealth Bank has launched its chatbot Ceba to assist customers with more than 200 banking tasks such as activating their card, checking account balance, making payments, or getting cardless cash… Available 24/7, Ceba can recognise approximately 60,000 different ways customers ask for the 200 banking tasks and will eventually be able to tell customers what they are spending their money on.”


What's New in Payments

Bankwest offers customers a contactless payment ring

Bankwest Halo: Make simpler, faster payments with our wearable payment ring. — Bankwest — “Bankwest Halo is the latest in wearable payment tech. It works exactly like your contactless cards, just grab the things you need, fist-bump the terminal and go… Your personalised ring has a payment device fee of A$39 which is payable for its manufacture, use and setup… There is no fee to register your interest or to receive your free sizing kit.”


What's New in Payments

Australian merchants to accept payments on their mobile phones — with no additional hardware required

CBA launches hardware-less payments app for SMBs — The Australian Financial Review — “Commonwealth Bank will bring a new mobile payments technology to market in Australia that enables small businesses to accept credit card payments of up to A$100 on their Samsung devices, without any other hardware…. A pilot program is expected to kick off in early 2018, with the smartphone payments platform to be rolled out commercially by mid next year.”


What's New in Payments

Garmin Pay goes live in US, Switzerland, Russia and Australia

Garmin and NXT-ID subsidiary FitPay announce Garmin Pay now live on Garmin Vivoactive 3 smartwatch — NXT-ID and Garmin International — “The new contactless payment capability is powered by the FitPay payment platform and available initially for Mastercard cardholders from numerous issuing banks and credit unions including BECU, Capital One, First Tech Federal Credit Union, and US Bank in the United States, and internationally through Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Cornèrcard, Sberbank of Russia, and Swiss Bankers Prepaid Services Ltd.”


Commbank adds Face ID to mobile banking app

The new face of banking — Commonwealth Bank of Australia — “From today, iPhone X users will be able to use Face ID to securely log in to the CommBank app. ‘Our customers use secure fingerprint logins on the CommBank app about 30m times a month,’ said Pete Steel, Commonwealth Bank executive general manager of digital. ‘Extending that functionality to Face ID is part of our ongoing work to provide a better banking experience to our customers through simple, easy and secure features.'”