PayWave driving down cash usage

Australians are relying less on cash for point of sale purchases since the introduction of contactless payment technology.
ING DIRECT’s Executive Director Customer, John Arnott, says Australians are becoming more comfortable with ...

March 20, 2014

Australians are relying less on cash for point of sale purchases since the introduction of contactless payment technology.

ING DIRECT’s Executive Director Customer, John Arnott, says Australians are becoming more comfortable with the technology.

“We’ve seen a huge uptake in payWave usage since introducing it on our Orange Everyday cards in 2013,” said Arnott.  

Overall contactless payment usage has increased by 207% between March 2012 to Sep 2013
(RFI Australian Mobile Payments Council, Sep-13)
.

Highlighting the growth in contactless usage is the decrease in the number of ATM machines; ATM withdrawals; and the amount withdrawn, according to RBA Statistics.

The increased usage among ING DIRECT customers is likely due to the bank’s 5% cash back offer on payWave purchases under $100 available for the first six months of holding an account.

Almost half of all payWave purchases made by ING DIRECT customers are at the supermarket check-out (48%); followed by personal/retail purchases (13%) and cafes/restaurants (13%).

“Our data shows grocery is where customers are using it most, likely due to the speed to transact and availability of the payWave technology” said Arnott.

So far, ING DIRECT has given back $10 million to its
Orange Everyday
customers since launching its 5% cash back offer on Visa payWave purchases. “Customers see an instant benefit in the form of cash paid immediately into their account,” said Arnott.





*RBA Payments Systems Statistics (Table C4), January 2013

Media contact:


Caroline Thomas


PR Manager, ING DIRECT


+61 2 9018 5160


+61 413 317 225


caroline.thomas@ingdirect.com.au

About ING DIRECT


ING DIRECT changed the way Australians bank 15 years ago by launching the country's first high interest, fee free online savings account.  Since then, we’ve brought this low fee value to home loans, transactional banking and superannuation. With over 1.5 million customers – and $30 billion in savings and $38 billion in mortgages – ING DIRECT has the highest reputation of any other bank in Australia (RepTrak, Oct 2013), as well as the highest Net Promoter Score (NFSM, December 2013).