Commonwealth Bank of Australia is working with MasterCard to use host card emulation to extend the availability of its mobile contactless payments service.
The bank already offers owners of newer Samsung Galaxy handsets a Secure Element-based offering but the new Tap & Pay optioon will extend this to any NFC-enabled phone running Android KitKat or above.
Once customers have enabled Tap & Pay within the CommBank app they can make in-store purchases of up to $100 with a wave of their phone. However, unlike many providers, the bank still requires customers to enter a PIN to confirm transactions.
Customers with iPhones and Android handsets that do not support NFC can still make contactless payments by paying $2.99 for stickers that can be attached to their phones.
Talking about the rise of mobile, Lisa Frazier, GM, digital channels, CommBank, told the Australian that the bank's app now has 3.2 million users and has processed more than $100 billion in transactions in the past 12 months.