ANZ Bank announced a swathe of sweet technology upgrades today from its Melbourne offices, but most interestingly is the revelation that the bank is now testing a mobile wallet product that uses the integrated NFC chips in Android devices.
Phil Chronican, the bank’s CEO, said at a press conference today that the trials will begin today, but they’ll be limited to 25 ANZ Bank staff — including himself.
If it sounds freakishly familiar to you, that’s because it is. ‘Limited trial’ is what banks say when they want to be seen doing something that customers want but don’t want to deploy it to everyone just yet.
Either way, it’s nice to see ANZ Bank using Android for contactless payments. Commonwealth Bank has been struggling with manufacturers for ages.
Along with the Android NFC pilot, ANZ Bank announced two new apps. ANZ FastPay lets users process same-day credit and debit card transactions, 24/7 and ANZ Transactive for Mobile which lets businesses move large payments back and forth on the go.
ANZ Bank is also rolling out smart ATMs to its branches and deploying Cisco videoconferencing gear to remote branches so that people in the bush can chat to specialist financial advisors. Neat!
The bill ANZ is footing for all this new tech? Up to $1.5 billion.
Do you choose banks based on the tech they can offer?