One of Australia’s largest banks has said that it has listened to its customers and is about to start offering Apple Pay support. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (abbreviated to CommBank) doesn’t give an exact launch date, but a tweet suggests that it’s coming soon.
This is significant due to the fact that CommBank is part of Australia’s “Big Four” largest banks, which previously struggled to come to terms with Apple over mobile payments.
Apple Pay is coming for CommBank personal customers January 2019 ?? pic.twitter.com/VHeZWKBoRp
— CommBank (@CommBank) December 14, 2018
Apple Pay launched in Australia in late 2015, roughly one year after it arrived in the U.S. That made it among the first wave of countries to receive Apple Pay. However, the country’s biggest retail banks worked together to “effectively boycott” the new service.
“Australian consumers should not be denied the ability to make payment choices that are openly available to consumers globally,” wrote the Australian Labor spokesman on digital innovation, Ed Husic, in 2015. “No doubt some will argue this move by the banks is anti-competitive – I am certainly concerned that it denies consumer access to a secure, efficient payment platform.”
The banks supposedly failed to reach agreements with Apple due to the company’s “intransigent, closed and controlling” tactics. Apple later hit out at these attempts to “delay or even block” Apple Pay. It even labelled them as a “cartel” for tying to act this way.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission concluded that it would not let the banks team up to bargain collectively with Apple over fees.
Now it seems that cooler heads have prevailed — and Apple Pay is indeed on its way to CommBank customers.
Apple Pay recently entered its 32nd market with its arrival in Germany.
Via: Apple Insider
