“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