Apple Pay exec Jennifer Bailey has responded to the ongoing battle between Apple and Australian banks in an interview with AFR.com. Bailey says that customers who are capable of using Apple Pay use it more often than any other country and that banks who aren’t on board yet don’t see the benefits.
Bailey says customers are prepared to switch banks in order to gain Apple Pay functionality, which should help push banks see the usefulness of the feature. In fact, a handful of smaller banks began supporting Apple Pay starting today.
Here’s a list of banks in Australia that now support Apple Pay: Australian Unity, Catalyst Money, Customs Bank, Horizon Credit Union, Laboratories Credit Union Ltd, Nexus Mutual, Northern Beaches Credit Union, The Rock, and UniBank. Macquarie Bank and ING Direct will be supporting Apple Pay by the end of the month.
Although forward-thinking, Bailey says that customers in Australia rely on Apple Pay than any other country in the world. However, adoption is quite low due to the major banks holding back.
Currently, ANZ Banking Group is the only major financial institution cooperating with Apple. All the others are currently in court with Apple over monopolizing contactless payment services on the iPhone. The banks have requested access to the NFC chip within the iPhone.
Bailey, however, is confident that Apple will get over this hurdle and sign on with the service.
“While initially, in many markets, there have been banks that have initially been wary about working with a company as large as Apple, once they begin to work with us and understand the Apple Pay platform, they see the benefits of it. That hasn’t fully happened with the ACCC applicants, because the conversation is happening through the ACCC process, compared to what normally happens, which is we have the conversation bilaterally.”
