Westpac to launch internal NFC payments trial
19 May, 2011
category: NFC
Westpac, one of Australia’s four major banks, has announced it will run an internal trial of contactless mobile payments, according to ITnews.com.au.
Set to kick off later this month, the trial will involve the use of NFC stickers that will enabled contactless payments on Westpac employees’ mobile phones. Westpac declined to give further details about the pilot, but it can be assumed that payments will be made at existing contactless terminals for Visa PayWave or MasterCard ayPass.
According to ITnews, Visa and the ANZ Bank – another of Australia’s “Big Four” – conducted a similar pilot in March, in which small groups from both companies used NFC-enabled iPhone cases to pay for transactions. Sam Qubrosi, ANZ’s head of product management and unsecured lending, told ITnews that the participants responded positively to the pilot.
Other past mobile payment pilots involving the Big Four Australian banks include the National Australia Bank (NAB) with Telstra and Visa in 2008 and the Commonwealth bank with MasterCard in the same year.
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