Yahoo Finance The Commonwealth Bank is finally rolling out Apple Pay
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has announced it will be rolling out Apple Pay for its customers from January 2019.
With Apple Pay, CBA and Bankwest customers will be able to pay for transactions in stores, apps and websites through their Apple devices such as iPhones, iPads, Apple watches and Macbooks with their fingerprints or face scan.
It means CBA customers won’t need to have their credit card or debit card on them to pay for things, and can instead ‘tap and pay’ with their phones.
As the biggest bank in Australia, the Apple Pay roll-out means 15.9 million customers will be able to use their mobile devices to pay from next month onwards.
“One of the things we heard repeatedly from our customers is that they want Apple Pay and we’re delighted to be making it available in January 2019,” said CBA retail banking services group executive Angus Sullivan said.
CBA is the second big bank to roll out Apple Pay in Australia, with ANZ launching contactless payments compatibility with Apple Pay in October last year.
A bit of history
CBA, NAB and Westpac made a collective push in 2016 and 2017 to boycott Apple Pay, which was shot down by the competition watchdog the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
“We are concerned that the proposed conduct is likely to reduce or distort competition in a number of markets,” ACCC chairman Sims said in April last year.
“While the ACCC accepts that the opportunity for the banks to collectively negotiate and boycott would place them in a better bargaining position with Apple, the benefits would be outweighed by detriments,” he said.
Make your money work with Yahoo Finance’s daily newsletter. Sign up here and stay on top of the latest money, news and tech news.
Read more: NSW has $152m in unclaimed money: How to claim yours
Read more: Bitcoin scammers wreak global havoc with bomb threats
Read more: 20 brilliant quotes from the world’s greatest investors
