Samsung Pay joined the ranks of many other similarly-named services when it launched in Australia last month, but it’s not your only option. From Optus’s cashless payment accessories to your bank’s own specialised service, here are all the mobile payment services available now in Australia.
Image: Samsung
Phone Apps:
Samsung Pay
Devices: Galaxy S6, S6 Edge+, Note 5, Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge.
Financial Institutions: American Express, Citibank
Samsung Pay is the most recent service to launch in Australia, with American Express and Citibank on-board for the launch. The biggest difference between Samsung Pay and its competitors is that it is able to function as a virtual magnetic swipe, as opposed to the NFC technology that is used by most contactless payments. Samsung Pay also uses fingerprint authentication for an extra level of security on your contactless payments.
Apple Pay
Devices: iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6S, 6S Plus, SE, Apple Watch.
Financial Institutions: American Express, ANZ
Unlike Samsung Pay, Apple Pay relies on NFC to make its contactless payments. Similarly to its competitor, however, it does use fingerprint authentication for security. It launched with American Express and soon brought ANZ on board, and it’s supposedly due to partner with more Australian financial institutions in the future.
Add-On Accessories:
Cash By Optus
Devices: Android 4.0 and above, iPhones except 3G, 3GS and 4 running iOS 8 and above
Cash by Optus is a bit different to the rest of the services on this list. It’s more of a mobile wallet with NFC enabled accessories. These include the standard sticker, a wearable band and a SIM card that can be used directly in NFC enabled phones.
You can link Cash By Optus to any Australian bank account, and you simply add funds of up to $500 to your Optus mobile wallet when you want to use it to pay.
Coles Mobile Wallet
Devices: Android 4.4 and above, iOS 7 and above
Financial Institutions: Coles Mastercard
Coles Mobile Wallet is a fairly simple system, meant for those with Coles Mastercards. It works via an NFC sticker for your phone, though Coles has indicated it has looked into NFC enabled hardware. It’s mostly useful as an option for people with Coles Mastercards who want to keep track of their FlyBuys points in the same app, and the sticker also has a FlyBuys barcode on it.
Bank Specific Apps:
Most bank-specific apps work off your phone’s NFC technology — if you have it. They work in a similar way to your credit card’s NFC chip — you can use it to tap to pay on any contactless payment terminal, for transactions under $100. Most apps should also let you input your pin for purchases above this amount. Here are all the banks with similar services:
ANZ Mobile Pay
Devices: Android 4.4 and above with NFC functions
Commonwealth Bank Tap & Pay
Devices: Android 4.4 and above with NFC enabled. iPhone and Android phones without NFC through purchase of a $2.99 PayTag
CommBank offers a similar service to other banks, but also provides an optional ‘PayTag’, an NFC sticker to attach to a phone without inbuilt NFC.
CUA redi2PAY
Devices: Android 4.4 and above with NFC enabled.
Lombard Finance Tap2Pay
Devices: Android 4.4 and above with NFC enabled.
NAB Pay
Devices: Android 4.4 and above with NFC enabled.
Westpac Tap and Pay
Devices: Samsung Galaxy S7, S7 Edge, S6, S6 Edge, S6 Edge+, S5, S5 Mini, S4, Note 5, Note 4 Edge, Note 4, Note 3 or Alpha devices
Did we miss any payment options that you use or know of? Let us know in the comments!
Comments
5 responses to “Compared: All The Mobile Payments Services In Australia”
FYI Samsung Pay also uses NFC. In fact it’s the only way to use it on the previous generation phones. Only the S7 and S7 Edge have the Magnetic Strip transmitter.
anything for windows mobile?
Worth mentioning that most of these apps for Android devices are just plug-ins for the built-in Tap-and-Pay service.
And that this will be automatically disabled if root access or system r/w is detected.
I’ve been using (or trying to use) Samsung Pay on my S6 Edge for the past couple of weeks. So far my success rate is about 25%. The majority of the time, it seems that there’s some issue with the phone’s NFC signal that brings up an error on the terminal, and asks for a chip insert or swipe.
Has anyone had any success with the nab pay app?
I tried it on my LG G4 but it doesn’t seem to work does it only work with NAB eftpos machines?
Heritage Bank also have an NFC enabled app for android