Commonwealth Bank of Australia Goes for NFC
- The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has started a large scale operation to improve the adoption of NFC technologies. According to the CommBank, this operation responds to a high customer demand. The bank decided to install 387 contactless card acceptance terminals at Caltex gas stations (Caltex is its first partner).
- This objective should be completed within three months. The bank also plans long terms implantation of 393 additional contactless POS terminals before end 2011.
- The CommBank is also considering the development of new applications for Smartphones likely to support NFC payment technology. CommBank’s customers will be able to choose to equip their phone with a microSD card embedding this technology.
- This initiative ties the CommBank to the oil and gas giant Caltex and shows its interest in the development of mobile uses. Nevertheless, the Australian bank does not neglect small the equipment of merchants with MasterCard PayPass and Visa payWave Contactless acceptance devices.
- In March 2011, ANZ Bank had started developing its NFC offer through the use of microSD cards. However, considering the lack of interest on the side of its customers, the third largest bank in this country decided to wait until the acceptance infrastructure had grown general before further investments.
- The first Australian bank, Westpac, decided to opt for RFID stickers currently being trailed by 50 employees.
- Australian banks, just like US and EU-based banks, are taking their first steps in mobile payments. They are still unsure which medium and technology to go for and wait for the development, if not of a standard, at least for proper equipment rates to go along with the new cardholders’ usages.