Australia's largest bank finally caves, announces imminent Apple Pay support

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia on Thursday announced it will finally begin supporting Apple Pay starting in January 2019.

CommBank is the second of the four major banks in Australia to adopt Apple's mobile payments platform after a contentious negotiation period kept the service out of the country for months.

The announcement was made today via CommBank's Twitter account.

Apple Pay is coming for CommBank personal customers January 2019 pic.twitter.com/VHeZWKBoRp
— CommBank (@CommBank) December 14, 2018

Australia and New Zealand Banking Group currently supports Apple Pay, while National Australia Bank and Westpac have not revealed plans for adoption.

There has been much back and forth between Apple and Australia's banks, with the institutions at one point demanding direct access to iPhone's NFC chip to create their own authentication protocol. As part of struggle, Australia's "big-three" banks — Commonwealth Bank of Australia, National Australia Bank and Westpac Banking Corp —

sought to collectively negotiate for the installation of non-Apple Pay software on iPhone hardware, threatening a boycott.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission denied the request in a draft determination in 2016, then again in a final determination in 2017, prompting the banks to reconsider their position on the matter.

19 Comments

arthurba 146 comments · 16 Years

About 5 years ago

First Germany and now Australia. Apple Pay is a wonderfully secure design. Really glad to see it succeeding in the marketplace.

EsquireCats 1268 comments · 8 Years

arthurba said:

First Germany and now Australia. Apple Pay is a wonderfully secure design. Really glad to see it succeeding in the marketplace.

ApplePay did launch in Australia several years ago - but this announcement is particularly meaningful as this is Australia's largest bank, and was seen as the primary instigator in trying to obtain additional concessions from Apple, which would have been anti-consumer but helpful to their profitability. (For reference Australia's banks are the world's most profitable, taking nearly 3% of the local GDP.)

anome 1545 comments · 16 Years

About bloody time. With CBA caving, Westpac and NAB are only a matter of time.

And Mattinoz is correct, Westpac and NAB are still holdng out as of this posting. Unless something has happened in the last five minutes.

kitatit 68 comments · 11 Years

Ah, not so fast.
Commonwealth bank has caved in to finally join ANZ but the other two major banks haven’t yet.

I’m still waiting for Westpac to allow me to use my iPhone 6 I bought 4 years ago. Apple Pay being a major selling point I was keen to enjoy using. It’s only taken 4 plus years for these corrupt clueless thugs to realise, for once, they don’t get to wear the pants this time.

Im no Apple Fan boy but what truely amazes me is that these multi billion dolllar businesses, either have, nonexistent, incompetent or flat out ignore their market research departments.

Apple may be a big arrogant jerk but we choose their Coolaid over Australian Banks any day.

ANZ- pragmatic gangster.
Commonwealth Bank - delusional gangster who finally got with the program.
Westpac- embarrassing delusional gangster, still holding out
NAB- embarrassing delusional gangster, still holding out.

Watch them give it up pretty quick now.

*^%#you Westpac!

The Fin Review is saying that it was due to huge customer demand. I expect the Royal Commission into Banking and its findings also factored into it. I suspect CBA saw this as a quick win to try and claw back some public opinion.