Some readers may remember that Apple met some resistance to Apple Pay from the big Australia banks back in 2016, when it first rolled out. The only one of the big four to launch at the time was ANZ. This posting, which appears in Electronic Payments International, discusses the announcement by Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) that they have now extended their January consumer card Apple Pay offering to business card holders.
‘Executive General Manager of Business Customer Solutions, Clive van Horen, said: “Following the commitment we made to Commonwealth Bank customers in January, I’m excited to announce that Apple Pay is also available to business card holders from today….“We are extending Apple Pay to business customers because they asked for it, and it’s part of our commitment to listen to our customers, put their needs first and take action to become a simpler, better bank. Delivering simple, intuitive digital payment solutions that provide choice and convenience, will continue to be a key focus for us in 2019.” ‘
Since there are often overlapping perceptions about business cards versus corporate cards (e.g.; travel cards and purchasing cards), we checked the CBA website to make sure which product(s) is being made accessible to Apple Pay, and indeed, this announcement applies to business card holders (typically very small businesses) and not corporate cards (at least not yet).
The article indicates that since launching the consumer Apple Pay service, CBA has seen a 400% increase in mobile payments. This is perhaps somewhat surprising since Australia is one of the markets where contactless payments have really taken off, especially ‘tap and go’, so a jump in wallet usage via Apple Pay would seem pretty high, but must have something to do with types of transactions and so forth. We shall see if similar jumps occur for business card users, once CBA has some data to share. As we have pointed out in various research releases, mobile for commercial cards in the U.S. (specifically the corporate card market) has been slow to gain momentum, for various reasons, but we are expecting a surge sometime very soon. In the meantime, we’ll keep an eye on the global markets.
‘The global trend of ‘Tap & Go’ is rapidly increasing with consumers turning to the convenience of contactless and digital wallets….Australia has some of the highest volumes of contactless payments globally. Following London’s success of cashless travel, Mastercard and CBA rolled out contactless payments across the whole of Sydney’s transport network.’
Overview by Steve Murphy, Director, Commercial and Enterprise Payments Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group