Contactless payments growing worldwide

Injong Rhee, Executive VP and head of Samsung Pay, speaks at the Samsung Unpacked Phone Launch. Photo / Getty

Several major Australian banks will accept payments from Google's Android Pay when it launches next year, in a step forward for the contactless payments industry that Apple is struggling to crack.

Westpac, ANZ and Macquarie in Australia were among those saying they would accept the payments from Google's app yesterday, but competing product Apple Pay has so far only managed to secure American Express.

Apple Pay launched in Australia last month, but without the support of other major banks it has less than 20 per cent of the estimated $2 billion market.

New Zealand has not seen either Apple Pay or Android Pay, but banks won't rule out following Australia's suit.

"ANZ New Zealand will be delighted to talk further with Apple and Google when they are interested in rolling out in New Zealand," said Liz Maguire, head of digital and transformation at ANZ New Zealand.

"Mobile payments technology is still very new, but it's growing quickly worldwide. Currently about 30 per cent of all card-present credit card transactions in New Zealand are contactless," she said. "In Australia the figures is around 70 per cent. We expect contactless use in New Zealand to be at a similar level in two to three years."

Eftpos company Paymark last year partnered with Spark, Vodafone and 2degrees to launch contactless payment app Semble into the market, and ANZ New Zealand last week launched its own app, goMoney Wallet.

Both products work only on Android phones not iOS, with the Semble app requiring a Semble sim card.

ANZ said it had decided to launch the Wallet through its mobile app instead of adopting Semble, but said it was watching Semble's progress with interest and hadn't ruled out joining the app as well.

"We're focused on developing our proprietary wallet, and will continue to watch the emerging third party wallets as they play out, with a focus on providing choice for our New Zealand customers," Maguire said.