Android Pay is the latest digital wallet service to land in Australia with ANZ Bank, Macquarie Bank and Cuscal pipping rivals in getting the service to market.
ANZ led the charge, proclaiming itself as “the first major bank to launch Android Pay in Australia”, although it had services live for only 18 minutes before Macquarie Bank revealed it had also joined the fray.
“ANZ customers can now use Android Pay to make simple and secure purchases wherever contactless payments are accepted with either an ANZ Visa debit or credit card, or an ANZ American Express credit card,” the bank said.
Customers also need an Android-based smartphone that runs a minimum of KitKat and has an NFC chip.
Macquarie Bank said that the Android Pay service would be available for both credit and debit card holders.
“With just one tap of their mobile phone, Macquarie credit cardholders can now make secure payments using Google’s Android Pay,” the head of the personal banking and financial services group Ben Perham said.
“Macquarie will also make Android Pay available to its debit cardholders in coming weeks, part of its real-time deposits offering built over the past two years on Macquarie’s new core banking platform.”
Cuscal, which operates the rediATM network, said it is connecting “more than 25 financial institutions to Android Pay via Cuscal today”, representing a potential pool of over two million credit and debit cards.
It said it would connect more institutions “in coming days and weeks.”
Overall, this will enable more than 2 million Visa and MasterCard credit and debit cards to pay with Android Pay.
“We’ve been working closely with Google for many months to make sure our clients are able to connect to Android Pay,” Cuscal’s head of EFT, acquiring and digital Colin Sultana said.
“We’re looking forward to seeing what our clients’ customers think.”
Most of the other large banks are likely not to be too far behind.
Google said late last year that it was working with “ANZ, Westpac, Bank of Melbourne, Bank of South Australia, Bendigo Bank, Cuscal, ING DIRECT, Macquarie Bank, and St. George” to introduce Android Pay.
Android Pay arrived later than rival Apple Pay, but has already secured itself a sizable chunk of commitments from the financial services industry.
Apple Pay’s highest profile bank locally is also ANZ Bank. Others have been reportedly holding out over the fees levied by Apple on transactions.
In addition to smartphone-native digital wallets, most Australian banks also offer their own homegrown wallet services; NAB, for example, continues to push its own service rather than the more hyped third party offerings.
@phiali You can use NAB Pay on your compatible Android device Alistair, as for Apple pay I don't have any updates, sorry ^RL
— NAB (@NAB) July 14, 2016