MicroSD Warning Sign from Australia?
The MicroSD technology used in an NFC m-payments trial in Australia by ANZ Bank and Visa has reportedly “not met all of our requirements” and is being shelved.
A report from ZDNet Australia:
“At this stage, we will not be progressing with MicroSD as a contactless payment technology platform, but
we will continue to look for ways to support contactless payments in the market,” ANZ said in a statement.
It is unclear at this stage whether or not the bank will look towards native NFC technology like the Samsung Nexus S or the recently announced Nokia N9 for future trials, but said that it is still committed to the technology.
“Overall, we found the trial extremely useful as it confirmed that customers like to use contactless for low-value transactions under $100. Contactless is an extremely exciting piece of innovative technology and we’re looking forward to seeing how we can implement it for our customers in the future,” ANZ added.
ANZ and Visa launched the trial for 50 of its Sydney and Melbourne staff in March with a technology developed by DeviceFidelity.
The upshot: the good news is that consumers like making contactless payments; the bad news is that FIs apparently can’t find the right technology to meet that demand.
See details on the trial here.
