As of today, ANZ is the first bank within Australia to launch support for Apple Pay for their customers.
Apple Pay is Apple’s payment technology that allows users to pay for items wherever contactless Visa or American Express payments are accepted using their iPhone (6 or newer), Apple Watch and several recent iPad models.
To ensure that credit card details are kept secure, the card number is not stored on the device (or at Apple) — instead a unique device token is generated and stored on the secure element chip within the device, and used to authorise transactions when they occur.
I’ve been using Apple Pay since it launched last November with American Express but find that supported is limited to merchants who:
- Accept American Express ;and
- Have a terminal that supports contactless American Express payments.
I find that this limits where we can use the service and am excited to see support for an Apple Pay service using Visa — acceptance should certainly be wider in this case.
I’m looking forward to seeing who announces support for Apple Pay next!