ING Direct and Macquarie Bank have signed up mobile payment service Apple Pay in Australia.
Support from the banks is ‘coming soon’ and will take the total number of Apple Pay supporting financial institutions in the country to 47, reveals the Apple Pay web portal.
The addition of Macquarie Bank and ING Direct will enable Apple Pay to challenge the dominance of four of Australia’s largest banks who continue their fight with Apple for the right to jointly negotiate with third-party mobile wallet providers.
The major lenders including Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ), National Australia Bank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Westpac Banking control most of the Australian cardholders.
Currently, ANZ is the only bank out of the big four which offers the digital payment platform Apple Pay to its customers.
Apple Pay is secure, as the actual card numbers are not stored on the device or on Apple servers while a credit card is added to Apple Pay; instead a unique device account number is assigned, encrypted and securely stored in the Secure Element on the user’s device.
