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Heritage Bank collaborates with Optus to develop contactless payment product
[December 28, 2012]

Heritage Bank collaborates with Optus to develop contactless payment product


Dec 28, 2012 (Datamonitor via COMTEX) -- Heritage Bank has collaborated with Optus Pty Limited, a provider of telecommunications services, to develop a product that enables people to use their smartphone as a virtual wallet.

A pilot project is currently underway, with Heritage representatives using prototypes of the smartphone product to buy items around the city. The project is a collaboration between Optus, Heritage Bank and Visa. The internal trial is intended to be the first step towards the development and launch in 2013 of a commercial Optus m-wallet, the company said.



Optus intends to incorporate a contactless payment system into the Optus m-wallet for customers to use their smartphones to wave and go to pay for day to day purchase transactions such as buying coffee, petrol, grocery items and movie tickets at hundreds of thousands of retailers nationally and internationally where Visa payWave is accepted, the company added.

According to the company, for the purposes of the trial, a participant's debit card information is stored on a SIM card in the phone. The trial application is loaded onto the phone and connects to the NFC-enabled SIM card, allowing the contactless payment to occur, without any additional hardware.


Heritage CEO John Minz said: "Heritage is one of the leading issuers of pre-paid cards in Australia, and we are excited to be working with Optus to use our expertise in this area to help develop this new smartphone product. Technology continues to transform the banking world and we are delighted to be involved in a project that puts us at the forefront of developing this type of payments technology in Australia. Our collaboration with Optus continues our goal of diversifying our business streams and leveraging the areas where we have expertise, such as prepaid cards." http://www.datamonitor.com Republication or redistribution, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without prior written consent. Datamonitor shall not be liable for errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon

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