Australia's Commonwealth Bank says it will have more than 20,000 contactless payments readers in stores by the end of the year - for use with four million issued cards - after signing up another two major retailers to the technology.
Retailer Bunnings will begin a pilot in all South Australian stores in November before a nationwide roll out in early 2011. Meanwhile, Dymocks has installed readers at its Sydney flagship George Street store with all locations to be contactless-enabled by the end of October.
This will enable customers with CBA MasterCard PayPass credit and debit cards to make purchases of up to A$100 at the point of sale by tapping their plastic against the readers.
CBA has been aggressively pushing the technology since outlining plans to trial it in 2006. Last year the bank vowed to install 5000 readers across the country and set a target of increasing this to 15,000 in 2010. This figure was reached in August and CBA now predicts 20,000 readers will be installed by the end of the year.
Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, executive GM, business products and development, Commonwealth Bank, says: "With Bunnings and Dymocks now on board alongside independent retailers including select IGA Supermarkets, Boost Juice, Red Rooster and Etihad Stadium, consumers can now really enjoy convenient and faster payments with merchants that are not only relevant to our customers everyday lives, but where speed of payment makes a difference to the customer experience."