After an extended wait, St George, Bank SA and Bank of Melbourne customers can now add supported cards to Google Pay.
The support for all three banks, which are either subsidiaries of or part of the Westpac Banking Corporation Group who added Google Pay support back in December of 2016, has been expected, though delayed, for some time with St George, Bank SA and Bank of Melbourne all initially promising support before pulling back and announcing delays on social media.
As far as Card Support is concerned, all three are listing an FAQ on their individual websites – but from my trials my St George Visa Debit is not able to be added while the full Visa card is now added:
According to the FAQ on all three sites you’ll need a device running on Android 5.0 (Lollipop) or higher, and with near-field communication (NFC) and host card emulation (HCE) technology.
As usual, setup for Google Pay is easy, simply download the app from Google Pay, then follow the bouncing ball to setup the card. St George asked for verification via Text Messaage which was fast and easy. As usual, transactions over $100 will require you to enter your PIN at the terminal but apart from that – happy tapping.
For those who’ve waited for Google Pay on one of these three banks, you’ll be able to take advantage of promotion for new users on Google Pay offering a $10 Google Play voucher for using it. To qualify, users need to simply sign up with an eligible card and use it five times (max one payment per day) within 30 days before the 31st of December.
If you’re a St George, Bank SA or Bank of Melbourne customer you should try your card out now.
Debit cards seem to still not be supported. Pretty annoying considering they’ve already removed the tap and pay feature from the Bank of Melbourne app.
For anyone with a card that is listed as supported but gets a “Card or Bank not supported” error, happened to me today and I had to get them on the phone. The issue was that my name in the app didn’t match EXACTLY how it appeared on my card. So after you add your card and it gets you to input your name, address etc, make sure your name is exactly the same as how it appears on your card.
On seeing the headline:
YAY! Finally!
On checking the supported card list:
Well fuck. The waiting game continues.
I guess the limited card availability is to iron out any last minute problems before rolling out to everyone else.
I just tried with a St George Visa credit card and it said it wasnt supported by my bank 🙁
Awesome that St George FINALLY got on board!
Unfortunately I left them 2 years ago and don’t see myself going back (unless they offer an extremely low home interest rate!).
st george took so long to offer google pay, guess payid is still a long way away
@Les the eligible cards are listed on the St George FAQ page linked above.
St George took so long with this. The long wait would have cost them some customers. I was searching for banks, but would not consider them unless they offered G Pay.
Do you think Westpac CBA and NAB will ever start appearing on Apple pay?
no , and its not their fault , its Apples fault as they signed an exclusive deal with ANZ
I’m hoping the debit card will be soon added. Two weeks ago I’ve been seeing a message saying the tap and pay feature in the app will be discontinued by the end of the year. I hope this will mean that the debit cards will soon be available and not just on Google pay. I’d be stoked if they become available on samsung pay as well…
No St George Visa debit card…. Well fuck… 😭
Damn it, I’ve been waiting so long to try Google Pay since I am with St George. Disappointed that the Visa debit card can’t be added. Do you have any idea if they might add the Visa debit later on?
Unfortunately not Bob. I’ve reached out to their PR team.
St George’s FAQ page is completely inadequate. It says you’ll need an “eligible card”, but it doesn’t provide a list of which cards are eligible. They leave it for the customer to figure out via experimentation and trial & error.
They updated the supported card list today…. Still can’t add my Vertigo Platinum VISA Card though… Mastercard no issues.