I was reading here a Commonwealth Bank promotion which started me thinking of how for a while now, I have been saying that retailers need to prepare and get credit/debit card terminal from their banks and EFTpos providers who can work with mobile phones because it's only a comparatively short period of time when instead of using your credit or debit card to pay for an item, a meal or a taxi, you will tap your mobile phone on your point of sale system.
What I have noticed that the banks are all behind it. Not sure exactly why but I am sure just getting rid of cards will save the banks a lot of money.
The promotion itself is quite simple, if you met the conditions, the Commonwealth Bank will give you $20 after using your mobile phone to do payments three times instead of using your MasterCard card. It is an easy $20 assuming you are eligible. All you need is an Android phone which most have as it is the most popular mobile in Australia, the mobile has to run KitKat 4.4 or higher and have a Near-Field Communication (NFC) antenna and Host Card Emulation (HCE) support which I suspect would be possible on most mobiles younger than four years. So I suspect the real problem for many people is that many people in Australia use VISA.
I am sure we can expect many more such promotions so check your terminal.
