As Apple continues its battle with three of Australia’s largest banks over regulatory concerns about Apple Pay, two other Aussie financial firms are announcing support for the contactless payments system.
ING and Macquarie on Friday announced they will be offering support for Apple Pay in the near future. The two firms confirmed they’ll be offering the payments solution to their customers via a statement to Reuters.
Ben Perham, head of personal banking at Macquarie, told the publication Apple Pay will be added to the bank’s digital payments offerings. “We’ve seen strong interest in Apple Pay from our customers and we’re delighted to confirm it will be available later this month,” Perham said.
ING issued a similar statement, noting the bank’s 500,000 Orange Everyday account holders prefer to manage their accounts on mobile devices. The comments are unsurprising considering neither Macquarie nor ING field a brick-and-mortar branch network in Australia. (Via AppleInsider)
Although Apple Pay has received support from 11 Australian financial institutions, all but one are of the smaller, regional variety. ANZ is the only member of the “big four” banks in Australia to offer the contactless payments service to their customers. Meanwhile, National Australia Bank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Westpac Banking Corp, are fighting Apple over access to the iPhone’s built-in NFC capabilities, demanding access to the feature for their own, competing payments systems.
Apple asserts that the three banks want to force Apple to accept their terms, including allowing them to charge their customers that choose to use Apple Pay.
