Apple, Google and Samsung Pay adoption hits 10% in Australia: Roy Morgan

Popped into your local supermarket or cafe lately? You may have noticed that customers are being asked to keep their cash in their wallets in favour of contactless payments options for hygienic reasons. 

Whether this side effect of the COVID-19 outbreak will lead to a longer term increase in cashless payments is yet to be seen, but what we do know already is that the trend towards mobile payments in Australia is continuing its steady rise. 

Data released last month as part of Roy Morgan’s latest Digital Payments Report revealed that digital wallets such as Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay are being used by roughly one in ten Australians (9.8%) - up from 6.8% a year ago.

Apple Pay remained Australia’s most popular digital wallet with a 5.9% usage rate (up from 4%), followed by Google Pay at 3.9% (up from 3.1%) and Samsung Pay at 1% (no change). 

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The Roy Morgan research also showed a 2.8% uptick in the use of Buy Now Buy Later (BNPL) services such as Afterpay and Zip Pay in the period between January and December 2019 (when the survey was conducted), with 10.2% of Australians now using BNPL as a payment option.  

“Introducing new technology to large cross-sections of society is never easy. Part of the challenge that digital payment companies face is making people aware of what exists,” said Roy Morgan CEO, Michele Levine, in a statement released in March. 

“Taking buy-now-pay-later technology as an example, awareness of these services has grown from 41.5% of the population a year ago, to 55.5% today. This growth in awareness is the first step to higher rates of adoption.”

“Afterpay, Apple Pay, and Google Pay are expending a great deal of effort into developing new options that appeal to consumers, and clearly it’s paying off for them.”

Are banks getting onboard the digital wallet trend? 

It’s been almost four and a half years since Apple Pay first launched in Australia in late 2015, and since then the adoption and integration of the three major digital wallets has been relatively slow amongst Australian banks. 

Of the 69 personal bank account providers in the Mozo database, only 44% are currently offering bank account integration with Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay, while 23% are yet to offer any of the three. Here’s what the breakdown looks: 

• 70% of bank account providers offer Google Pay
• 68% of bank account providers offer Apple Pay
• 55% of bank account providers offer Samsung Pay

While the large majority of providers yet to provide their customers with all three mobile payment options are on the smaller side, there are a few exceptions. 

Among Australia’s larger banks, AMP and Westpac are both yet to offer Apple Pay while Bankwest, HSBC, ING and Macquarie are yet to offer Samsung Pay. Meanwhile, Citi isn’t currently offering either Apple Pay or Google Pay and ME is yet to provide integration with any of the three. 

“It’s a significant investment for banks to make those kinds of system changes, particularly for smaller banks and credit unions,” said Mozo Banking Expert, Peter Marshall. 

“Banks may also think that these features just aren’t terribly relevant to a large number of their customers just yet. After all, while growing, the Roy Morgan figure is a relatively low number, but it’s to be expected because not everyone is completely comfortable with doing all of their spending and finances on a mobile yet.” 

“These mobile payment services will become more popular over time though, but it may take a while for them to reach a really high level of penetration in the market.”

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Ready to learn more about the different digital wallets on offer and how they work? Check out our mobile payments guide for more information, or start comparing bank accounts with the latest payment options in the table below.