ANZ has extended its tie-up with Android Pay to its Mastercard customers from today.
The bank said more than half a million customers would benefit from this. ANZ introduced the use of Android Pay in July for holders of its other credit cards.
This makes it the only one of the big four banks to offer both Apple Pay and Android Pay.
The other three big banks — Westpac, NAB and Commonwealth — along with Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, have attempted to negotiate as a group with Apple, Google and Samsung for the use of Apple Pay but their move has not met with the approval of the ACCC.
{loadposition sam08}Android Pay uses host card emulation, meaning that a new code is generated to replace the 16 digits on a credit card in order to keep the card number secret.
While both services use tokenisation, Apple Pay generates tokens in a chip called the Secure Element. Android Pay generates tokens in the cloud and if an Internet connection is not available, the app will use one of a limited number of tokens stored on the device.
Last year, a study from Cambridge University found that 87% of Android devices are insecure. Google issues monthly security updates for Android but for the most part OEMs do not bother to package them and issue them to users. Thus only Google's own Nexus devices, generally the higher-priced ones, receive regular security updates.
Android can only be updated as one big firmware blob.