Bendigo Bank, Westpac NZ sign Samsung for mobility

Bendigo and Adelaide Bank and Westpac's New Zealand arm have signed deals to collaborate with Samsung to deliver mobility solutions to customers.

Bendigo and Adelaide Bank’s telecommunications subsidiary, Community Telco Australia (CTA), has developed an end to end mobile payments system which promises to be “more than just an app”, according to David Joss, CEO of CTA.

Redy, set to be launched next month, is a consumer payments solution which will offer loyalty benefits to customers using the Redy app to shop at partnering merchants.

CTA will collaborate with Samsung on the Redy launch and on a pipeline of future projects.

Under a memorandum of understanding, CTA is provided early access to Samsung technology and IP and, in return, CTA will assist Samsung with testing new products and services. The relationship takes the form of project teams working together to share expertise across both organisations.

In a similar move, Westpac NZ has signed a collaboration agreement with Samsung for future products to assist with the bank’s digital innovation.

The partnership began with the recent successful proof of concept for fingerprint scanning which leveraged Samsung’s secure KNOX technology. Following the completion of the project the two organisations recognised an opportunity to partner more strategically.

“Westpac NZ has an aspiration to be the number one digital bank globally. Samsung are developing across different devices and they have experience of how consumers are using those devices – they are experts in that type of consumer behaviour,” said Simon Pomeroy, Westpac NZ chief digital officer.

Craig Gledhill, Samsung’s regional vice president of enterprise and SMB, told iTnews the banking and finance industry was an "obvious choice for Samsung’s capabilities".

"All banks now want BYOD and CYOD as a foundation element to their mobility solutions,” he said.

Samsung is experimenting with NFC (near field communication) for banking products as well as improved personalisation of display for customers, Gledhill said, in order to provide solutions for two identified areas of interest for banks - mobility and display.