Australian’s pay with Apple Pay more than anyone else in the world!

It’s official – Australian’s are embracing Apple Pay in a big way, in fact, we’re using it more than any other customers in the world, and today two new banks announced Apple Pay for their customers coming this month.

The fact is it’s hardly surprising that we’re using Apple Pay so much, not just because we love our technology and gadgets and we’re early adopters, but because our base infrastructure – the payment terminals in our retail stores right across the country is miles ahead of the rest of the world.

We had the fastest adoption of tap and go payments per capita in the world when contactless cards were introduced, so while the United States have barely scratched the surface, in Australia we can pay for a chocolate bar, our groceries or even larger purchases with advanced payment terminals.

And now it’s official – Apple confirmed Australian customers transact with Apple Pay more frequently per month than any other customers around the world.  Now by “transact” we do mean buying something.  Some countries are lucky enough to have a fully integrated transport system like Japan where you can use your iPhone and Apple watch on the trains and buses – those uses of Apple Pay don’t count, what we’re talking about here is shopping! Spending money with Apple Pay.

An ANZ Spokesperson told EFTM “We continue to see good activity from our customers using digital wallets. We now estimate that about 26 per cent of our customers with an eligible card and device are using Apple Pay. Across all digital wallets we’ve seen more than 10 million transactions in the last 12 months.”

While ANZ approaches its first year anniversary of launching Apple Pay, another two banks are set to offer Apple Pay to their customers – taking the number of Aussie banks to over 40.

As we suspected some weeks ago, ING is getting ready and will launch this month, as will Macquarie Bank.

John Arnott, Executive Director, Customers, ING Direct says “We have more than half a million Orange Everyday customers and most prefer to connect with us through their mobile devices. For many of them, their smartphone is their bank, and it’s a natural extension that their iPhone will also become their wallet.  We’re very happy to be able to give our customers what they have been asking for in Apple Pay.”

 And over at Macquarie bank, their Head of Personal Banking Ben Perham says  “We’ve seen strong interest in Apple Pay from our customers and we’re delighted to confirm it will be available later this month. This means Macquarie customers will have the option of making mobile payments with iPhone, Apple Watch and other Apple devices, and marks the latest step in our approach of supporting innovative digital solutions to making banking faster, easier and more convenient for our customers. When we built our digital banking offering we set out to make it more like the personalised and intuitive consumer experiences we are accustomed to having with leading technology companies, and providing our customers with access to the latest mobile payments technology is an important part of this.”

Apple Pay is now available in 13 countries around the world, with the bulk of transactions now coming from outside the USA.

Staggeringly, the transaction volume on Apple Pay in the December quarter was up 500% year on year, and overall customers using Apple Pay around the world have spent Billions – that’s B for Billions.

In the December quarter alone there were hundreds of millions of transactions and billions of dollars in purchases using Apple Pay, and perhaps a sign of Apple driving the US into the future (that place Australia has been for years) is that merchants in the US are reporting to Apple that 90% of all contactless transactions are made with Apple Pay.

Strong growth for Apple Pay, and while Australia leads the way, still frustrating that three of our biggest banks just don’t give a rats about their customers.  What’s doing Westpac, NAB, Commonwealth?