Australia's Commonwealth Bank Now Supports Apple Pay

Commonwealth Bank (CBA) today implemented support for Apple Pay, making it the second of Australia's "Big Four" banks to offer the payments service. CBA is the biggest retail bank in Australia and was a notable ‌Apple Pay‌ holdout.

Multiple MacRumors readers in Australia have reported being able to add their Commonwealth Bank cards to ‌Apple Pay‌, and Commonwealth Bank is listed as a partner on Apple's Apple Pay site in Australia.

commonwealth bank apple pay
Commonwealth Bank first announced plans to support ‌Apple Pay‌ last month, giving in to consumer demand after a years-long dispute with Apple over fees and access to the NFC chips in iPhones.

When announcing ‌Apple Pay‌ support, Commonwealth Bank Group Executive of Retail Banking services Angus Sullivan said that the bank had heard many requests from customers asking for ‌Apple Pay‌, leading to its implementation.

"We are committed to making changes that benefit our customers and simplify our business. We will continue to look for more opportunities to innovate and listen, to ensure our customers get the best experience when they bank with us. Responding to customer demand for Apple Pay underscores our commitment to becoming a better, simpler bank.

Commonwealth Bank, along with NAB and Westpac, tried to collectively bargain with Apple to attempt to force Apple to open up the iPhone's NFC capabilities to support other digital wallets, like those offered by the banks themselves.

Apple said that this would be harmful to consumers and would stifle innovation, a position that Australian regulators agreed with when denying the banks authorization for collective bargaining.


ANZ was the only one of the four major banks in Australia to support ‌Apple Pay‌ when it launched in the country in April 2016. Other smaller banks later implemented support, but Commonwealth, NAB, and Westpac continued to hold out amid negotiations.

It's not clear if NAB and Westpac will implement support now that Commonwealth Bank has done so.

Bankwest in Australia is also now supporting ‌Apple Pay‌, along with ASB Bank Limited in New Zealand and Bank of America Merrill Lynch in Canada. Multiple smaller banks in the U.S. have implemented ‌Apple Pay‌ support as well, with a full list available on Apple's website.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay

Popular Stories

iPhone 17 Pro Render Front Page Tech

iPhone 17 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 10 New Features

Sunday March 23, 2025 10:00 am PDT by
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. iPhone 17 Pro's alleged design via Front Page Tech Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of March 2025: Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone...
iCloud General Feature Redux

iPhone Users Who Pay for iCloud Storage Receive a New Perk

Thursday March 20, 2025 12:01 am PDT by
If you pay for iCloud storage on your iPhone, Apple has a new perk for you, at no additional cost. The new perk is the ability to create invitations in the Apple Invites app for the iPhone, which launched in the App Store last month. In the Apple Invites app, iCloud+ subscribers can create invitations for any occasion, such as birthday parties, graduations, baby showers, and more. Anyone ...
Generic iOS 19 Feature Mock

iOS 19 Coming in June With These New Features

Thursday March 20, 2025 2:04 pm PDT by
While the first iOS 19 beta is still more than two months away, there are already plenty of rumors about the upcoming software update. Below, we recap the key iOS 19 rumors so far. visionOS-Like Design In January, the YouTube channel Front Page Tech revealed a redesigned Camera app that is allegedly planned for iOS 19. According to Front Page Tech host Jon Prosser, the Camera app...
iOS 18

Top 5 New Features Coming in iOS 18.4

Friday March 21, 2025 3:26 pm PDT by
We're not getting new Siri Apple Intelligence features in iOS 18.4 as expected, but the upcoming update does have quite a few new additions that will be worth upgrading for. We've rounded up the five best features to look forward to, and if you're not running the beta, you can expect to get access to these in early April. Priority Notifications If you have an iPhone or iPad that supports...
Generic iOS 18

Apple Seeds iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 Release Candidate With Priority Notifications, Ambient Music and More

Monday March 24, 2025 10:07 am PDT by
Apple today seeded the release candidate versions of upcoming iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 updates to developers for testing purposes, with the software coming a week after Apple released the fourth betas. iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 can be downloaded from the Settings app on a compatible device by going to General > Software Update. With iOS 18.4, Apple is adding the Priority Notifications...
airpods pro 2 gradient

AirPods Pro 3 Launch Now Just Months Away: Here's What We Know

Tuesday March 18, 2025 9:13 am PDT by
Despite being released over two years ago, Apple's AirPods Pro 2 continue to dominate the wireless earbud market. However, with the AirPods Pro 3 expected to launch in 2025, anyone thinking of buying Apple's premium earbuds may be wondering if the next generation is worth holding out for. Apart from their audio and noise-canceling performance, which are generally regarded as excellent for...
Foldable iPhone 2023 Feature Iridescent Search

Foldable iPhone Expected to Launch Next Year, Costing Around $2,000

Monday March 24, 2025 3:43 am PDT by
Apple will launch its long-rumored foldable iPhone next year with a ~$2,000 premium price tag attached, expects well-connected Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman. Gurman's comments on Apple's launch plans for its first foldable device appeared in the Q&A section of his latest Power On newsletter. Earlier this month, the reporter said Apple's foldable iPhone could be arriving "as early as 2026,"...
airpods max 2024 colors

Don't Buy Into Apple's Hype About AirPods Max Gaining Lossless Audio

Monday March 24, 2025 4:24 pm PDT by
Apple today announced that AirPods Max with a USB-C port will be gaining support for lossless audio and ultra-low latency audio with a firmware update next month, alongside the release of iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, and macOS 15.4. For context, audio files are typically compressed to keep file sizes smaller. There are lossy compression standards like MP3, and Apple's own Advanced Audio Codec...

Top Rated Comments

domneedscoffee Avatar
81 months ago
Can't believe it's nearly 3 years already since I moved to ANZ...
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
desmond2046 Avatar
81 months ago
Ironically, Apple Pay is much more widely supported in Australia than in the US, especially for small businesses, because most of the POS machines in Australia already support tap-and-pay.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
JoshBoy Avatar
81 months ago
Westpac have lost 30% of their market cap over the last two years and is being investigated by the government for bad practice. Nope, I don’t think they are that great
All banks in Australia have lost market cap mainly due to regulation and capital requirements. They still are a dividend play like always, not a growth play.

Westpac still is the second largest by market cap in the country.

To lastly state they are getting investigated for bad practices is fake news. There is a royal commission taking place and from my view Westpac have come through far better than any of the other majors and the only major to retain their wealth arm of the big four.
[doublepost=1548207713][/doublepost]
Get real
You're seriously trying to compare the Australia, with a population of what, 25 million to the US's 325 million?
You could dump the entire population of Australia into four or five mid western states and you be hard press to find your cousin.

If Australia was state, it wouldn't even be the largest state by population, California has more people.

There is no irony here.

Only a much larger economy with a scale you failed to take into account.

Here is some background into US challenges:

UK’s Lessons For US Mobile Payments Adoption ('https://www.pymnts.com/nfc/2016/uk-lessons-for-us-mobile-payments-adoption/')
Here's an excerpt:

NOW FOR THE “BUT”

OK, you say, so all we need to do now is hustle up and get contactless POS terminals out there in massive force.

If it were only that easy.

In the U.S., there simply aren’t the same dynamics in play.

Two million contactless terminals today sounds like a great start — until you do the math. There are something like 13 million POS terminals across a massive geography that is the United States, not including mPOS devices.

The U.S. is also a market in which there are 1.2 billion payments cards in circulation, more than 47 billion debit card transactions, more than 26 billion credit card transactions and 209 million adults over the age of 18.

Oh, and something like 14k financial institutions that issue those cards and countless merchant acquirers and ISOs all hawking merchants to deploy new terminals.

It’s a whole lot harder to wrangle this ecosystem to the ground given the diversity of merchants and the engrained plastic card habits honed by consumers over the last 50 or so years.
I do love how much room we have to swing a cat (the one size is basically the same as the entire US) oh and we tend not to shoot each other too much.

Attachment Image
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Glasgowuk Avatar
81 months ago
Judging by their share price, they haven't missed you, Lol
[doublepost=1548199349][/doublepost]

"Incredibly stupid"? Have you seen their net worth!! You would dream to be that "incredibly stupid"!
Westpac have lost 30% of their market cap over the last two years and is being investigated by the government for bad practice. Nope, I don’t think they are that great
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Juiceboy Avatar
81 months ago
Australia had tap and go for years. It's incredible popular here. Most people don't even carry cash ever.
Vending machines, sushi joints everywhere accept contactless payments so apple pay is available everywhere. It's baffling that places like "wall-mart" or what ever the american stores are called don't accept apple pay for some observed reason.

What ever retailer has a POS terminal from the last 10 years that accept contactless, accepts apple pay by default.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
JoshBoy Avatar
81 months ago
Swing cats? Nice deflection, however irrelevant.
Incidentally, plenty of room in the US to swing cats if that's your thing.
By the way nice pic, which is also irrelevant.

Another deflection.
You're on a roll.
Point did not pass me by, I just cringe when I read statements from Americans that feel they are the biggest and best in the world. Whilst we may only have circa $25m I say quality over quantity.

The other persons post you were attacking was just making the point that as a nation we have adopted to tech in this space far better than other locations. The same thing happened where we moved to 3G phones back in about 2000/2001 when the US were still trying to adopt Edge.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)