NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – With its capitulation last week to Apple and agreement to participate in the tech giant’s payments service, Australia’s largest financial institution, Commonwealth Bank–which had once vowed not to support Apple Pay–shows that Apple is making headway with major banks that had once resisted supporting the NFC wallet.
The announcement by Commonwealth followed a similar announcement by Germany’s largest bank, Deutsche Bank, which had also declared it would not participate in the major Pays wallets. While Apple still can only count one or two major banks in many countries–especially in Europe–it continues to chip away at the holdouts, as the big banks have long since discovered that their self-branded payments services are failing to catch on with consumers.
Apple has enjoyed much support among small issuers in a range of countries, which see the payments service as a relatively easy way to offer digital payments and to stay competitive with their larger rivals. And in such countries as the U.S., UK, China and some smaller countries, just about all major banks are part of Apple Pay, even if use of the payments service has lagged behind initial rosy projections. And, of course, in China, Apple is fighting a hopeless battle against payments giants Ant Financial and Tencent Holdings and their QR code-based wallets.
