ANZ Bank adds Mastercard to its Apple Pay, Android Pay options

0

news ANZ Bank has announced that its MasterCard customers can now use their smartphones to make payments with both Apple Pay and Android Pay mobile apps.

From yesterday, over 500,000 of the bank’s Australian customers with MasterCard credit cards can use the payment apps to make secure purchases wherever contactless payments are accepted.

Matt Boss, ANZ’s Managing Director Products and Marketing, said: “We were really pleased to be the first major Australian bank to launch Android Pay last month, and now our MasterCard customers can make mobile payments with this service as well.”

“Our customers have responded really well to the launch of Apple Pay and now our customers can make mobile payments with MasterCard credit cards as well,” he continued.

Boss said the addition of its MasterCard option brings “more choice to more of our customers”.

MasterCard Australasia’s Head of Market Development and Innovation, Garry Duursma, explained that MasterCard’s Digital Enablement Service (MDES) powers the “secure service” for ANZ, allowing cardholders to make “safe and convenient” payments from their mobile devices.

When you use the Apple and Android apps with a credit or debit card, the actual card numbers are not stored on the device or on the providers’ servers.

Instead, a unique token is assigned, encrypted and stored in the Secure Element of the mobile device. Each transaction is authorised with a one-time unique dynamic security code.

ANZ’s MasterCard cardholders will now be able to use Apple Pay and Android Pay anywhere contactless payments are accepted at over 750,000 terminals across Australia.

The announcement comes after ANZ became one of the first Australian banks to offer Android Pay to customers in July of this year.

ANZ has also notably been the first and only bank to partner with Apple since the launch of its mobile payment product in December 2015, with other banks seeming reluctant to make the same move. At launch, American Express was the only card partner for Apple Pay.

The paucity of bank partners was described as a “boycott” by Ed Husic MP at the time. He further called for “technology neutral” regulation to prevent consumers from suffering from possibly “anti-competitive” actions of some financial institutions.

Soon after, Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Glenn Stevens claimed that he had not seen “any evidence” that Australia’s major banks were actively boycotting Apple Pay.

However, since then, four major Australian banks have applied to the ACCC for permission to form a group that would have the right to jointly negotiate terms and conditions with third-party mobile wallet providers, including Apple, and also be able to jointly boycott the apps during negotiations.

The attempted group was called a “cartel” by Apple, which roundly rejected the application, while Google has since requested exemption.

Image credit: Google