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​Westpac joins Samsung Pay

Samsung adds to existing partnerships with Citibank and American Express for mobile payments

Westpac is offering the Samsung Pay mobile payments service to its debit and credit card customers, following an agreement between the organisations.

The agreement comes just two weeks after a group of Australian banks, which included Westpac, lost a fight to collectivity negotiate with Apple and boycott and iPhone maker’s payment platform, Apple Pay.

The banks sought to bargain with Apple for access to the near-field communication (NFC) controller in iPhones and reasonable access terms to the App Store. This would enable Westpac, CBA, NAB, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank to offer their own integrated digital wallets to iPhone customers in competition with Apple’s digital wallet, without using Apple Pay.

Samsung Pay is available on compatible Samsung devices including the Gear S3 smartwatch and soon-to-be-released Galaxy S8 and S8+ smartphones.

Samsung has existing partnerships for the mobile payments service with Citibank for MasterCard and Visa credit card holders as well as American Express issued credit cards.

Westpac Group, chief executive, consumer bank, George Frazis, said in a statement that Samsung pay is one of many digital solutions the bank is progressively introducing to its 9 million customers.

Meanwhile, Samsung has announced that iris scan will feature as an authentication method for Samsung Pay on the new Galaxy S8 and S8+ smartphones. This will complement PIN and fingerprint as authentication methods, which are required before a user can make a transaction using Samsung Pay.

Samsung is also launching an NFC provisioning feature, which will allow users to enter credit card details into Samsung Pay by tapping a card onto the bank of the device.