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Topic: Digital

RFi interview: Ashley on mobile banking and payments

Posted on by Rachael Shupe

Image of Ashley Williams, Senior Digital Manager, CuscalAs we jump feet first into 2016, RFi Group had the pleasure of sitting down with Ashley Williams, Cuscal’s Senior Manager – Digital, and someone right in the Cuscal workroom, to discuss progression in the mobile banking and payments apps space and what the latest is when it comes to digital wallets.

As General Manager of Product & Service at Cuscal Adrian Lovney stated in a LinkedIn Pulse Post early this year, 2016 is set to be the year mobile wallets go mainstream in Australia.

The announcement just before Christmas that Android Pay will arrive in Australia in early 2016 is big news for payments, but it’s also another significant step that’s slowly, but inevitably, taking mobile payments from niche to mainstream. There has been a lot of chatter about mobile wallets being the future of payments in Australia, but so far we haven’t seen many people actually use their mobile phones as wallets. 2016 is looking like the year that will change this.

RFi Group met with Ashley who went on to explain Cuscal’s sharp focus on providing superlative technical integration for their customers and are currently nothing short of delighted to be experiencing such a huge take up for the new product. With 41 of their clients signing up to The Pays for day one, the figures are accounting for roughly 90% of their card volume.

Providing these solutions for our clients means that the work we do for them now, puts them in a key position to be able to launch into other wallets as soon as they’re available. We are focused on that technical build, creating and facilitating the links into the schemes (specifically Mastercard, Visa and eftpos) and then into the three different wallet providers (Google, Apple and Android) – meaning phones can in effect become a digital wallet.

As well as managing the technical integration and back end ‘maze’ of complexity this project brings, Cuscal will be providing customers with marketing toolkits and training support to guide them through the adverting process.

And to help, they have some pretty stellar partners –

We’re collaborating with Google to ensure the campaigns are consistent across the market and offer a seamless customer experience. In terms of Cuscal itself, all 41 of our clients will be out in the market promoting and marketing from day one.

With all this change, we wondered, what can customers expect? Ashley is frank but fair –

Obviously mobile banking apps with contactless payments have been around for some time, and the payments part of the equation isn’t something new, what we do believe is going to change is the market awareness and public’s perception of payments – it is really set to shift dramatically.

Ashley goes on to cite the key differences for the Android Pay launch, compared to the way Australian financial institutions launched their mobile wallets in dribs and drabs. There is a clear plan to wait until everyone is ready and “all the ducks are in a row”, before they go live. “From a market perspective, it will be a huge coordinated push.” She says.

The concept and launch of the digital wallet itself, Ashley explains, is when things will get interesting. Cuscal’s view is that the ecosystem will change as pay providers (Google, Apple and Samsung) begin to partner with merchants and the in-out purchasing becomes a big component of the wallet. The loyalty of that ‘front of wallet’ card provider will move it from purely a transactional product, to an all-encompassing solution.

Other benefits lie, perhaps unsurprisingly, in data.

Because of the richness of the data we can receive, Cuscal’s FI customers will have full exposure to behaviour and trends of their card holders. They will have access to information such as default card choice or individual selection of card, which will deliver great insight to a bank regarding what their customers are doing.

This all provides banks with more information than they have ever had before and therefore the ability to reach out to their customers about card choice or behaviours. Other advantages can be found in the origination process of Android Pay. If a customer doesn’t have a banks mobile banking app, the functionality will prompt them to register. Again, providing yet another way for banks to increase the amount of customers they have using their banking app.

Ashley thinks this increased functionality is likely to take mobile payments to the masses.

With increased advertising and marketing from Google, as well as almost every Australian FI encouraging people to use these new offerings, the shift to mobile payments as the major, if not one day, sole, channel, is inevitable.

It is a huge shift, but we are at a stage now that it is not about acceptance, but more so, customer preference. It will need to work and it will need to work consistently, but we expect customer take-up to be rapid.

If it is in fact to become a comprehensive digital “wallet”, Cuscal sees the need for other parties to get one board and quickly. As seen in the UK, the rise in mobile tap and pay payments since its integration with transport for London’s Oyster network, was exponential. If case studies such as this are anything to go by, it is obvious that with the inclusion of an individual’s drivers licence, Opal/ Myki (travel) card, Medicare card, health insurance card, could really begin to speed things up and quickly. As Ashley quickly points out, the payments piece is only one component.

Ashley closes noting that Cuscal is in fact in a unique position compared to other affiliate parties.

“We are not just one institution, we are representing so many. Essentially we have 41 individual projects running seamlessly and in many ways, in conjunction, which is a huge achievement. For us to be able to match the market and to be there for day one of the launch, mobilising teams so quickly, is exciting and we really feel like it is going to make a huge impact.”

This article first appeared in the March 2015 edition of RFi Group’s Australian Retail Banker (which is no longer available on their website).

2016: mobile wallets to go mainstream in Australia

Posted on by Uberbrand

ThMobile phone folded to look like a wallete announcement just before Christmas that Android Pay will arrive in Australia in early 2016 is big news for payments, but it’s also another significant step that’s slowly, but inevitably, taking mobile payments from niche to mainstream. There has been a lot of chatter about mobile wallets being the future of payments in Australia, but so far we haven’t seen many people actually use their mobile phones as wallets.

2016 is looking like the year that will change this – why?

Apple’s here, Android’s coming and Samsung won’t be far behind
Many Australian iphone users have been patiently waiting for the chance to use Apple Pay to make payments and it finally arrived in November last year as part of a deal with Amex. What has made the arrival of Apple Pay less of an event in Australia than in other countries is that it can currently only be used by people who have an iphone 6 or 6+ and an American Express card that’s issued by Amex (the Amex ‘companion’ cards, issued by banks, aren’t able to be used). This means that only a very small amount of iphones in Australia can actually be used with Apple Pay right now.

Google has announced that Android Pay will be here in early 2016 and it’s rumoured that Samsung won’t be far behind. Google, Apple and Samsung (aka “The Pays”) are already involved in the war for mobile handset prominence and the next frontline is the mobile wallet where The Pays will all be competing for prominence. The Pays are slick, work well and their functionality is continually being enhanced as usage increases. While Australian mobile banking apps are some of the best in the world, take-up from similar overseas markets (like the UK) indicates that The Pays are already having significant uptake within a short space of time after launch.

The Pays all have similar functionality, Android and Samsung are usable on many of the same devices, and all are likely to arrive in Australia at roughly the same time. Without many clear differences between the products they will be battling to win their place in the wallets of customers through their marketing and advertising spend.

Banks will be competing to be ‘top of wallet’
Just the same as banks currently compete to be the card of choice in customers’ physical wallets, the same thing will soon be happening in the mobile world. Although you will be able to store multiple cards in some mobile wallets, all of The Pays will have a default card installed in the app. So whichever banks are more successful at having their cards installed as the default card will earn the lion’s share of the income generated by processing the transactions through the wallets. For banks which aren’t the default card it will be much harder for them to overcome customer change inertia and get their card ‘top of wallet’.

This means that banks are likely to use their own considerable marketing budgets and strong customer relationships to try to get their customers to install their card as the default. This will increase the noise around the arrival of The Pays and increase customer uptake.

Fully integrated mobile wallets are starting to become a reality
Part of the reason that Australians continue to pay with their credit and debit cards instead of their phones is that at the moment mobile tap and pay doesn’t offer a compelling proposition over and above card tap and pay. Also, as banks generally earn the same amount if a cardholder uses their card or their mobile to make a payment, they have had no particular incentive to migrate people from cards to mobiles.

Mobile wallets will really take off when they offer something different, and better, than cards. Eventually we will see mobile wallets incorporate all of the cards in our wallets including ID cards, medicare and health insurance cards and travel cards like Opal and Myki (as is already happening in the UK). We’re starting to see the first stage of this in Australia with the incorporation of loyalty cards into mobile wallets (all of the Pays will have this capability, although not necessarily at launch). This means that people won’t have to remember to carry their various loyalty cards and their credit/debit card – everything will be stored in the same place, their mobile wallet.

The battle to be top of wallet has started and we don’t know who will win.
Now that the battle to be top of wallet has commenced, things will heat up quickly. And as many of the competitors have very deep pockets and aren’t used to losing, it’s likely to be long and fierce. The only definite winners will be consumers as banks, mobile companies and merchants improve the user experience and functionality of their offerings.

At Cuscal we are working with our financial institution clients to connect them to Android Pay from Day 1 (and the other Pays when they arrive). We want to ensure all of our clients can compete on a level playing field for their place in the wallets of the future.

Cuscal will connect clients to Android Pay Day 1

Posted on by Uberbrand

Mobile phone paying at POS terminal
Sydney, 16 December 2015: Cuscal, one of Australia’s leading providers of end-to-end payments solutions, is pleased to announce that it will be ready to connect its financial institution clients to Android Pay as soon as it launches in Australia.

Cuscal’s clients include over 70 Australian financial institutions to which it supplies a range of products including credit and debit cards and a mobile banking app with HCE contactless payments capability. All of these will be able to connect to Android Pay.

Commenting on the launch of Android Pay Adrian Lovney, Cuscal’s General Manager of Product and Services said:

“It’s a very exciting time for mobile payments in Australia and Cuscal is right in the thick of it. We have been working with Google to make sure that our clients will be able to connect to Android Pay from Day 1, giving them a level playing field to compete with the big banks for their share of customers’ mobile wallets.”

Media contact
Jake Waddell jwaddell@cuscal.com.au 0417 312 902

Digital disruption of mobile banking in Australia

Posted on by Uberbrand

young couple on phones

Within the span of just a few years, mobile technology has changed virtually every aspect of the world that we live in. That’s because the mobile devices that we now happily or dutifully carry around have evolved from basic communication tools into portals that we use to not only engage with others, but also manage countless aspects of our lives. Banking is no exception. Today’s consumers increasingly want to have all of their banking needs met from the palm of their hand. In fact, according to research from Roy Morgan the amount of Aussies that only use their mobile or tablet to do their banking has tripled in the last three years.

While that may seem like a narrow point at first glance, it actually underscores a much broader trend: these days customers strongly prefer using their mobile phones to do their banking over all other channels they have available to them. Meanwhile branches, ATMs, call centres and even internet banking are on the decline. A UBS Survey from August this year (“Is a bank in your pocket the next big thing?”) estimated that Australian banks can expect an 11 per cent reduction in branches as a result of mobile banking.

Consider, for example, that 80 percent of millennials would rather do their banking digitally than in person. For a generation that has grown up with smart phones and tablets, that typically means banking via mobile apps. Interestingly, according to one survey, 26 percent of respondents reported having switched banks just to get a better app.

What it means to bank in a mobile world
Recent research from RFi and Visa showed that digitally engaged customers (ones who engage with their bank via a mobile device) hold the most products with their MFI, are the most likely to approach their MFI if they want new products, and even have longer home loan tenures. Not surprisingly, that’s part of the reason why we’re seeing a spate of new advances in mobile banking technology, such as the introduction of:

  • Cardless cash from ATMs, which allows users to text message codes to each other, which can then be used to withdraw cash from nearby ATMs.
  • Mobile apps that include bill splitting functionality to make it easier for friends to share bills and request money owed. Apps like these divide group bills and then send texts to the relevant contacts in your phone, telling them how much they owe and providing a unique reference number. They also track payments so you can see whether or not you’ve been paid.
  • The ability to store loyalty cards on your mobile device and then simply scan it at the checkout, removing the frustration of not remembering (or being able to find) a different card for every store

Other recent innovations in Australia’s digital and mobile banking include the rise of biometrics and wearables. With the introduction of fingerprint technology, financial institutions are offering easier and more secure options for logging into their banking apps. Meanwhile the growth of smartwatches means that financial institutions are using wearable technology to give customers their financial information from their wrists.

With the arrival of the New Payments Platform, apps like these will give you the ability to do all of your banking in real time from your mobile, tablet or computer. If you can imagine being able to use your mobile to make secure payments to anyone in Australia in a matter of seconds, to apply for and open new accounts, and to set up limits and blocks on those accounts, then you’re beginning to get a sense for what will soon be possible.

Last but not least, many financial institutions are trying to perfect the omni-channel experience for their customers. That means they are using the data they already have about their customers to create seamless experiences no matter how, or on which channel, the customer interacts with them. While many banks are still enhancing the omni-channel experience, leading organisations are taking things a step further. The next evolution of better customer experiences will be the Internet of Everything, where transactions integrate seamlessly into consumers’ day-to-day lives. In that way, payments are not only virtually undetectable, but also add far greater value than the actual transaction itself.

To navigate the future you need the right partner
The evolution of digital and mobile banking in Australia is inevitable and is happening at break neck speed. For financial institutions that presents a number of challenges. For instance, developing new mobile applications is not only expensive, it’s also a potential money-trap. Today’s million-dollar investment could very well be obsolete in just a year’s time. The Commonwealth Bank’s executive general manager of digital channels, Lisa Frazier, said recently at the Agile Australia 2015 conference that its annual funding cycle couldn’t cope with their agile development needs. As a result, she had to institute monthly funding meetings combined with fortnightly risk and compliance catch-ups to get things moving quickly enough.

For most financial institutions that don’t have the scale of CBA, it’s important to find the right partner to help you navigate the challenges — one that’s building communities of interest that you can be a part of. When you do, you’ll not only benefit from economies of scale, but also wind up with a customised, agile solution that you can easily refine and enhance based on customer feedback. That means that getting to market becomes faster, easier, and cheaper, as well as more effective. In an age when the alternative is to lose your competitive advantage, it’s a compelling choice.

By Colin Sultana, Head of EFT, Acquiring & Digital

Shoppers switch to smart phones

Posted on by Uberbrand

Shoppers-switch-to-smart-phones-to-pay-for-groceries-and-takeway

Sydney, 21 May 2015: Customers using their Android phone for ‘tap and pay’ purchases are most likely to be buying their groceries or a takeaway meal, spending an average of $27 per transaction, according to new data to be released at a national conference in Melbourne today.

In July last year, customer-owned financial institution CUA became the first banking provider in the Asia-Pacific to roll out a free mobile app using HCE technology, which allowed customers to ‘tap and pay’ with any compatible Android phone. The mobile app – CUA redi2PAY – was developed by CUA’s payments provider Cuscal and works on any NFC-enabled Android phone running on KitKat 4.4 or later.

CUA Head of Customer Insights Chris Malcolm and Cuscal Head of EFT, Acquiring and Digital Colin Sultana will share insights into how customers are using their ‘mobile wallets’ as part of a case study on the redi2PAY implementation at the Australian Cards and Payments Summit taking place at the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre today.

Mr Malcolm said groceries were the top retail category for redi2PAY transactions, followed by fast food, petrol stations, restaurants/ dining and alcohol purchases.

“Interestingly, the top five retail categories for redi2PAY mobile payments are the exact same retail categories where CUA customers make the highest number of Visa PayWave purchases using their debit card,” he said.

It appears that CUA’s early adopters of mobile payments technology are literally swapping their debit card for their mobile phone, using it for the same kind of purchases as they would have made with a traditional plastic card.”

Customers using redi2PAY are also using it more frequently – the number of customers using redi2PAY more than 35 times per month was around three times higher in March than it was six months earlier in October. The number of customers using mobile payments semi-regularly (5 to 14 times per month) is up 63 per cent for the same period.

The data also shows:

  • Customers spend an average of $27 per transaction when using CUA redi2PAY – the same as the average amount for Visa PayWave purchases.
  • The number of redi2PAY transactions spikes towards the end of the week (Thursday to Saturday). Saturday has the highest number of redi2PAY transactions, while
  • Sunday has the least. Visa PayWave transactions also peak on Saturday, while Monday has the lowest number of payments.
  • Most mobile payments occur between 12pm and 8pm, with a spike from 1-2pm. The trend is similar for Visa PayWave payments.
  • The number of redi2PAY transactions each month has increased by more than 16 per cent since September 2014.
  • December 2014 recorded the highest value of redi2PAY transactions for a single month, coinciding with the lead up to Christmas.

CUA and Cuscal have already been recognised in Australia and Asia as pioneers in mobile payments. A leading financial research company in Asia, IDC, recently named CUA redi2PAY as one of the top 25 mobile innovations in financial services for 2014-15.

“There is huge potential for this technology to fundamentally change how people pay for purchases,” Mr Malcolm said.

“People tend to take their smart phones everywhere they go and now, the need to also carry cash and cards in your wallets is becoming a thing of the past.”

He said approximately eight times more CUA customers now have a compatible Android phone which could be used for redi2PAY, compared to a relatively small group of customers who had the required technology when redi2PAY was launched 10 months ago.

“We’re seeing increased take-up of this HCE technology across the banking sector, as others follow our lead. The use of ‘mobile wallets’ will only continue to grow as customers become more familiar with the technology and its security features, and upgrade their Android devices to the latest models.”

Media contact
Jake Waddell jwaddell@cuscal.com.au 0417 312 902

Cuscal set for early adoption of Apple Pay solution

Posted on by Uberbrand

group meeting

Cuscal is excited about the announcement from Apple today that it will support payments in its new iPhone 6, together with iOS8 and has called it Apple Pay.

Adrian Lovney, General Manager, Products and Services believes that Cuscal is in a prime position for early adoption to the new Apple Pay solution.

“With Cuscal’s work to date regarding tokenisation we can leverage the ongoing development of our HCE app, previously only available for Android devices,” said Adrian.

“This ensures that we are in a key industry position for early adoption to the new Apple Pay solution. As you might expect, Apple’s announcement positions themselves as the gatekeeper to the Apple ecosystem (unlike the Android HCE approach which is more open).”

Apple has announced that as part of iPhone 6 they will be launching their NFC enabled mobile payments service (Apple Pay) in partnership with the key schemes, specifically Mastercard, Visa and Amex as well as initially the top six issuers in the USA, covering 83% of cardholders. This includes tokenisation through the schemes and a secure element embedded in the phone itself. Substantial hardware upgrades of existing iPhones to the iPhone 6 will be required before Apple Pay is widespread, however with the launch of Apple Watch also incorporating NFC capabilities in 2015 we understand that this will bring NFC capability to the current iPhone 5 and iPhone 5c.

The device will have preloaded applets for each of the schemes, which Apple will provision secure credentials directly into the embedded element from iTunes or add new by taking a photo from the iSight camera.

Adrian continued that “While Apple has clearly indicated their intent to launch this in the USA in the first instance we anticipate that Australia will be a focus as a fast follower to this initial roll-out. As Australia has one of the highest rates of contactless availability Cuscal is excited to welcome the new Apple capability and provide our clients with a quick-to-market solution ready for the Australian Apple launch.”

“When we can we will incorporate this functionality within Cuscal’s payment platform, as well as within Cuscal’s mobile banking and payment suite.

“As a major Australian issuer we intend to be on the frontline of this exciting new development by Apple, allowing our clients to continue to be at the forefront of mobile payments.

“We believe that a combination of Apple’s NFC based solution and Cuscal’s HCE offering will finally bring an end to the Secure Element (SE) wars and allow consumers to access NFC payments on the device of their choice at an affordable price point,” he concluded.

Cuscal & CUA launch Asia-Pac’s first HCE solution

Posted on by Uberbrand

Woman holding a mobile phone above a terminal to tap and pay for a purchase
Sydney, 14 July 2014: Cuscal, and Australia’s largest customer-owned financial institution, CUA, today announced the first commercial rollout of a mobile payments application using HCE (Host Card Emulation) to turn an NFC-enabled smartphone running the latest Android operating system (KitKat 4.4 or later), into a ‘tap and pay’ payments device.

As of today, CUA cardholders can download the redi2PAY app from the Google Play Store to make mobile payments at the over 100,000 contactless terminals already rolled out around Australia.

With confidential information held encrypted, the app offers a secure and ‘card-less’ method of payment for CUA cardholders.

CUA’s commercial rollout is the first from amongst Cuscal’s client base, since the Australian payments leader first trialled HCE-based mobile payments in March 2014.

“Cuscal is proud to be able to work with CUA to bring this truly ‘game changing’ mobile payments solution to its customers,” said Adrian Lovney, General Manager of Product & Service at Cuscal.

“Australians love their smart phones, and with HCE, we have been able to develop a cost-effective mobile payments solution that will allow our clients, like CUA, remain ahead of consumer demand.”

CUA Chief Executive Officer, Chris Whitehead said: “While other tap and go payment technology is available, this is the first in Asia Pacific to use HCE technology. It requires no other tag or sticker to be attached to your mobile phone – you simply download the CUA redi2PAY app and off you go.”

“Our announcement takes us one step closer to becoming a cardless and more mobile society.”

“Whilst many of our competitors are charging customers a separate fee for having ‘tap and go’ capability on their phone, we are providing this at no cost, as part of our ongoing better-value service offering.”

“As a customer-owned financial institution, our model enables us to provide better value to customers in the form of lower rates and fees, and more accessible services. And this rightly positions CUA as a credible alternative to the ‘big banks’.”

“CUA is also determined to attract new customers and in particular younger customers. We believe our ‘Life rich banking’ proposition resonates with today’s younger generations but we also need to offer the latest capabilities to meet their expectations of convenience.”

‘Life rich banking’ is at the heart of what CUA is about, assisting our customers to enrich their lives through delivering consistently better-value banking,” Mr Whitehead said.

Bringing HCE mobile payments to market with redi2PAY
Following Google’s support for HCE in Android 4.4 KitKat, which was announced in October last year, Cuscal began developing the redi2PAY mobile payments application in house, with the aim of offering a market-leading solution to its financial institution clients.

Brian Parker, Cuscal’s Chief Information Officer, was the first person to perform a live HCE-based Visa payWave transaction using the new solution with the purchase of two packets of Tim Tams at a 7 Eleven in Sydney’s CBD on 17 March 2014. An official trial commenced to test and refine the application shortly thereafter.

Cuscal has now made the solution available to its Australian client base as part of its broad suite of mobility services; either as a complete client-branded mobile application as with CUA, or via an application programming interface (API). Cuscal has designed the redi2PAY mobility suite with an ongoing development cycle, to ensure its clients remain at the forefront of technological innovation.

About the technology
By incorporating single use tokens as part of the approach, the application allows consumers to make a number of transactions even when the mobile is out of internet coverage range.
Transactions are incredibly fast with the phone powering the NFC chip, providing the consumer with a quick and easy payments process.

By utilising the HCE technology there is no requirement for additional steps from third parties, such as trusted service managers, handset manufacturers or telecoms providers, making it faster to take products to market and providing Cuscal’s clients with a cost effective solution.

Stephen Karpin, Group Country Manager for Visa in Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific said: “Visa is focused on making next generation commerce a reality. With 47%1 of face to face Visa transactions in Australia already taking place via Visa payWave contactless technology, mobile is the obvious next step. We are delighted to be working with Cuscal to bring cloud based mobile payments to market.”

How redi2PAY works for CUA customers

  1. CUA redi2PAY can now be downloaded by CUA Visa cardholders to a compatible Google Android device (Nexus 5, Nexus 7, and newer HTC and Samsung smart phones, among others).
  2. Customers then wave their mobile phones over secure, contactless point-of-sale terminals at the checkout in order to make payments, looking out for the contactless Visa payWave symbol.
  3. The app and phone pass a series of messages between the phone, the point of sale terminal and Cuscal’s servers, either authorising or declining the transaction.
  4. These transactions are protected by Cuscal’s Vigil fraud bureau service, an industry-leading fraud prevention and protection suite, which has more than two million cards under management.

About CUA
As Australia’s largest customer-owned financial institution, CUA provides banking services to more than 400,000 Australians across the country and is emerging as a competitive force in Australian banking. CUA is 100 per cent owned by its customers.

For more information, please visit: www.cua.com.au

1 VisaNet (May, 2014)

Cuscal launch first HCE mobile payment trial

Posted on by Uberbrand

BiscuitCuscal’s mobile contactless payment solution enables quick and seamless provisioning – an Australian first delivering tomorrow’s world today

Sydney, 27 March 2014: End-to-end payments leader Cuscal has today announced the launch of the first trial of a HCE (Host Card Emulation)-based mobile payment capability, for Visa cardholders, in Australia and the Asia-Pacific.

The future-ready solution has been developed by Cuscal in Sydney and when launched commercially, will provide Australian consumers with greater choice when it comes to making secure payments with their mobile phones.

The Cuscal HCE mobile payment solution effectively turns an NFC-enabled phone running the latest version of the Android KitKat mobile operating system into a contactless payment device. With confidential payments data1 stored in a secure cloud, it provides a strong level of security.

When commercially available, the solution will enable Visa cardholders whose cards are issued by one of Cuscal’s financial institution clients to use their mobile phone to make contactless payments via existing Visa payWave contactless point-of-sale terminals that are widely available in Australia. Sensitive payments data is stored in Cuscal’s secure cloud service which the mobile phone connects with via the cellular network.

A pilot team of Cuscal staff cardholders have begun testing the HCE capability over the last week. Following the successful completion of the trial, Cuscal aims to make the solution available to its Australian client base in the middle of this year as part of its broad suite of mobility services; either as a complete client-branded mobile application, or via an application programming interface (API).

This will allow Cuscal clients to offer innovative mobile payment solutions to their customers, while minimising upfront development costs by leveraging this secure and cost-effective solution.

Adrian Lovney, General Manager of Product & Service at Cuscal, said: “Cuscal’s HCE mobile payments solution is a shining example of Australian innovation delivering tomorrow’s world today. Getting payments inside phones has traditionally been difficult because of the need to coordinate multiple parties such as trusted service managers, handset manufacturers and telecommunication providers. The HCE approach simplifies this while maintaining the highest level of payment security for cardholders.

“A level of openness will be built into Cuscal’s foundation mobile application offering, so we can continue to develop the HCE mobile payment solution in line with partner demand and device innovation as well as ensure that it can be integrated with the New Payments Platform (NPP) when it is ready,” he said.

Stephen Karpin, Group Country Manager for Visa in Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific said: “Australia is again leading the charge in payments innovation and we are delighted to work with Cuscal on this trial to help make next generation commerce a reality. With 40% of face to face Visa transactions in Australia already taking place via the Visa payWave contactless technology, it is important to develop the infrastructure to deliver secure mobile payments to the consumer.”

Jason Murray, General Manager Products & Marketing, CUA, said: “It’s exciting that our key payments partner is developing cutting edge mobile payments infrastructure, which we at CUA will be able to leverage for the benefit of our customers in the future.”
Brian Parker, Cuscal’s Chief Information Officer, was the first person to perform a live HCE-based Visa payWave transaction using the new solution with the purchase of two packets of Tim Tams at a 7 Eleven in Sydney’s CBD on 17 March 2014.

Mr. Parker says Google’s Android KitKat operating system, combined with the security of Cuscal’s cloud service and Visa’s network, will provide clients with the highest level of assurance around security whilst being able to access future mobile payments technology and reducing the impact of upfront development costs.

“Increasingly, NFC technology is being developed in the cloud and maintained by trusted technology providers; this is the future of payments,” said Mr. Parker. “Importantly this solution is provisioned securely with multiple layers of protection built-in.”

“Cuscal’s client-branded mobile payments solution, incorporating HCE, will be refreshed and updated on a continual basis to accommodate new functionality in line with device evolution, industry innovation, new payment channels, market demand and innovation within our own ATM, payments and switching environment. We also plan to make HCE payments capability available to our clients via an API.”

Additional points:

  1. The Cuscal-Visa HCE mobile payments capability must first be downloaded by the Visa cardholder to a compatible Google Android device (Nexus 5, Nexus 7, and newer HTC and Samsung smartphones, among others).
  2. Recent research from Telsyte shows that of the 15 million smartphone users in Australia at the end of 2013, Android leads the way, with slightly over 50 percent of the market.
  3. The customer can then wave their mobile phone over secure, contactless point-of-sale terminals in order to make payments and should look out for the contactless symbol at the payment terminal.
    The application and phone pass a series of messages between the phone and Cuscal’s servers, either authorising or declining the transaction.
  4. Like others processed by Cuscal, these transactions are protected by Cuscal’s Vigil fraud bureau service, an industry-leading fraud prevention and protection suite, which has more than two million cards under management.

1 Such as encryption keys, card numbers or PINs.