Having lost its bitter Apple Pay battle, Australia's Westpac has signed up to support a rival NFC mobile payments service from Samsung.
The move enables Westpac Mastercard and Visa debit and credit cardholders to make contactless payments with their Samsung handsets at thousands of retail sites across Australia.
George Frazis, chief executive, consumer bank, Westpac, says: "On many devices, our customers can now use either Westpac Tap and Pay, Android Pay or Samsung Pay to make contactless payments, and we’re delighted to be the first Australian-owned bank to offer this choice."
Missing from this list is Apple Pay. Westpac was one of a group of Oz banks which was recently denied authorisation to collectively bargain with Apple and boycott Apple Pay.
The banks - Westpac, CBA, NAB, and Bendigo and Adelaide Bank - went to Australia's competition watchdog last summer seeking permission to engage in collective negotiation with Apple in relation to the roll out of Apple Pay in Australia.
The banks later narrowed their case, focussing purely on access to the NFC function on iPhones so that they can offer their own wallets on the handsets in the same way they can with Android phones. But the watchdog sided with Apple.