ANZ sees dramatic uptake in digital wallet payments

ANZ Bank customers made almost $600 million in mobile payments during the first half of fiscal year 2018.

The bank said today that customers completed more than 18.5 million mobile payment transactions in the half, an increase of 156 percent on the previous corresponding period.

ANZ said the transactions were made from mobile wallet services from Apple, Samsung, Google, Fitbit and Garmin, as well as the bank's own mobile pay service.

CEO Shayne Elliott credited the bank's investment in mobile services as well as the 2016 establishment of its digital bank division - overseen by former Google executive Maile Carnegie.

Elliott said ANZ's mobile app "had gone from from the lowest rank on the Australian app store and with a rating of just one out of five, to the number one finance app in a matter of weeks with the highest rating of 4.6 out of 5."

Since its launch in February this year, the app has seen 737,000 existing customers migrate from ANZ's older goMoney Grow apps, while an additional 200,000 customers have taken up mobile banking with ANZ for the first time.

Approximately 25,000 users are downloading the app each day, he said.

The bank said it has 3.4 million digitally active customers logging on more than 19 million times per week. Customers are conducting 84 percent of deposits and withdrawals digitally.