“Big Australian banks have agreed to accept payments made on mobile devices using Google Inc’s Android Pay, leaving Apple Inc’s rival Apple Pay system out in the cold as the tech giant struggles to coax lenders to accept its term,” Swati Pandey reports for Reuters.
“Banks including Westpac Banking Corp, ANZ Banking Group and Macquarie will accept contactless payments via Android smartphones when Google rolls out the service in first-half 2016, the tech giant said on Wednesday,” Pandey reports. “In contrast, Apple remains locked in talks with big banks in search of a deal to accept Apple Pay. The iPhone maker’s system launched in Australia last month, with support for American Express Co cards, but remains adrift from 80 percent of consumers using other credit cards in a market Westpac sees as worth more than $2 billion this year.”
“‘It’s a big bargaining chip for (Australian) banks to use to force a better deal with Apple,’ said Foad Fadaghi, managing director of technology research firm Telsyte,” Pandey reports. “The absence of a deal on Apple Pay hinges on banks’ unwillingness to give up a slice of a market for contactless payments they have cultivated that is now much bigger than in many other countries. More than 60 percent of all card transactions in Australia are now contactless, ANZ bank said in a statement on Wednesday.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Hardball. Perhaps this means a deal is now likelier nearer.
SEE ALSO:
Apple struggles to persuade Australia’s big banks to join Apple Pay – December 9, 2015
Aussie consumers lose as banks effectively boycott Apple Pay – November 27, 2015
Apple should have bought MasterCard last year in anticipation of these problems. Then they would have had global acceptance and diversification. Last year it’s market cap was an affordable 80B.
Our big fish in a tiny pond banks will eventually toe the line as they should. It’s embarrassing to see the crap android pay adopted here first. I hope apple keeps playing hardball and makes them cave to their terms, the longer they hold out, the less Apple should give them.
It’s not first. Apple Pay was first in Australia (via AMEX). Android Pay is only “coming in 2016.”
Same reason banks in Canada are playing hardball and refusing to see how secure and consumer-friendly Apple Pay is. Tokenised? Anonymised? We (the major banks) don’t get customer info with every transaction? Forget it, how do you want us to turn consumers into the product if we don’t get the data we want?
Last moth I had $1200 of fraudulent visa charges which RBC had to eat . I spoke to the manager and complained to the bank ombudsman about this .RBC has android wallet like the Australians despite the security concerns and also despite all the Canadian banks using Apple Pay in their American operations!the good part of the story is Amex is now my card and their service is very good , the card is widely accepted and Apple pay works flawlessly on the moonrise contactless system
Bank of Apple.
Come on Banks do something for your customers for a change.
You would think that the banks would welcome the opportunity to reduce credit card fraud. Perhaps it is because they pass on the cost to their customers that they don’t give a damn about fraud.
I used to believe that banks were public rights. I didn’t see them as greedy businesses until I grew up and grew wiser.
It has always been the pattern, Apple sells a valuable service but Google gives a similar product away. Similar but inferior with the only object to gather and sell information that should be private.
Dont worry. People will learn the hard way. Just like how people believed in Galazy phones and then realized real iPhones are Apple’s and cheaper clones are better than Galazies…
The Australian Banks will cancel that contract faster than a New York minute once they experience a massive security breach with their Android Pay systems. iCal’ed.
Screw Australian banks. Apple should just ignore them and after the horrible experience with android, they will came out running begging Apple to give them Apple Pay.
So…the Aussies think they’re bigger than Apple and their powerful, well healed, passionate users?
*popcorn*
Banks are sometimes like lawyers. Well at least recently…
Oh you Aussies. Just funning us, aren’t you! That isn’t really your head up your ass, is it!
Big Australian banks have agreed to accept payments made on mobile devices using Google Inc’s Android Pay
😆 😆 😆
Isn’t that like collusion if all the banks conspire together to force Apple to do something? They’re independent businesses and each should strike a deal on their own, no? They’re obviously out to make the most money instead of doing what’s best for their customers and what’s best for security.