NAB: "Mobile Payments Not in the Cards"

In an article written by Suzanne Tindal, for ZDnet Australia, she reports that National Australian Bank will deploy over 2500 Contactless Terminals to merchants by Christmas, but has pulled the plug on a mobile payments platform that relied on a software download to the phones SIM.



NAB rolls out contactless terminals



Suzanne Tindal, ZDNet.com.au - September 21 2009

National Australia Bank has announced that it will roll out systems to over 500 Melbourne merchants this month, which will enable them to take customers' payment when they hold their cards up to a reader, but has stopped developing technology for payments via mobile phone.

"The bank had also been trialling contactless payments via mobile phone, made possible by downloading a software application to a phone SIM. However, despite positive results from a three-month trial of this technology which found that 90 per cent of participants were happy making payments using the mobile technology, the bank said mobile payments weren't on the cards.

"Mobile payments rely upon card issuing companies and telcos positioning product together," a spokesperson for the bank said. "We are not pursuing development of this at this point in time."

Editor's Note:  Sounds like they read Javelin's Report (see previous post) on contactless/mobile payments where they stated:

"The contactless payments ecosystem is presently a series of “islands” with little-to-no mutual realization of value among the various constituents. The report indicated that the success of contactless solutions depends on some disruptive factor or wide-scale deployment that bridges the gaps and allows for value creation among all constituents that connects the islands.