Apple has expanded Apple Pay support in Australia to now include credit and debit cards from the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ). Apple on Wednesday updated its Australian website to reflect the expansion.
The ANZ website has also been updated to reflect the new partnership, with the bank adding a new Apple Pay webpage to the site. ANZ cardholders can now add their cards to Apple Pay.
Prior to today, American Express was the only card that would work with Apple Pay in Australia. The payments service has been slow to roll out down under, reportedly due to issues Apple has experienced in negotiating fees with Australian banks. The contactless payments system has also been faced with competition from the New Payments Platform, a payments system backed by the Reserve Bank of Australia, the country’s central banking authority.
While many of ANZ’s cards are supported by Apple Pay – including the ANZ Rewards Platinum Card, the ANZ Access Advantage with Visa Debit, and the ANZ Business Advantage wth Visa Debit – MasterCard, ANZ Access, and ANZ Corporate cards are not supported. Visit the ANZ website to see if your card is supported.
ANZ is one of the big four banks in Australia, alongside Commonwealth Bank (CBA), Westpac (WBC), and National Australia Bank (NAB). Apple is reported to still be in talks with the other three institutions about adding Apple Pay support for their customers.
Tuesday’s Q2 2016 earnings call saw Apple CEO Tim Cook comment that Apple Pay is growing at a “tremendous rate.” He told call participants that transaction volume for the service is up 5X compared to one year ago. He went on to says the service is gaining one million new users a week, and is now available at more than 10 million locations worldwide.
(Via MacRumors)
