Australian banks St.George, BankSA and Bank of Melbourne have finally launched their Tap & Pay feature, but only for Samsung phones.
The Tap & Pay feature has been a commonly requested feature among users who have noted the popularity of the feature from users at other banks as well as with Android Pay users. The feature went live in the December 14th update, but it hasn’t been smooth sailing with customers receiving errors when trying to activate Tap & Pay in the app. St George has advised that they have resolved these issues now and are monitoring for any further bumps in the road.
As with Westpac, the banks parent, the feature is limited to Samsung device, which is in line with the statement they gave us back in June when they started laying the groundwork for launching Tap & Pay. St George has also gone on to note that the feature is ‘only compatible with devices purchased in Australia’.
We’ve been able to verify this with the St George app and a Samsung phone and the setup seems quite simple. You can either tap the ‘Tap & Pay’ button on the bottom nav bar, or select it from the feature list under ‘Product Features’ in the Nav Drawer. The setup asks you to select which credit cards you have associated with your account that you want to use and then you’re asked how you want to operate the Tap & Pay function. You have three options:
Finally, you’ll have to ensure that NFC is turned on. Once you’ve gone through the setup you should be notified that your Tap & Pay setup is complete.
The feature is now live for St.George, BankSA and Bank of Melbourne customers, so if you meet the requirements you can check it out now in their apps. Me? I`m going back to waiting for Android Pay, which shouldn’t be too far away.
I’m surprised how slow St.George are moving on this. They used to be a bank that was on the cutting edge of technology. Their internet banking was one of the best, their home loan range was one of the most flexible. After the Westpac takeover, it seems that their progress has slowed right down.