CBA Quick Take: The evolution of digital payments

In October last year, Commonwealth Bank launched its new Smart terminals. Can you tell us a little bit about your Smart terminals and how the technology behind the terminals is helping to transform payments in Australia?

Our Smart terminal features – in an Australian first – multiple connectivity options such as WiFi, 4G and Dual Sim to provide greater reliability and resiliency for our merchant customers. This means businesses can stay connected and keep up and running, even when there may be unexpected problems, like telecommunication issues.

Smart is on an Android operating system creating an environment for developers to easily develop app solutions that help merchants to better run their business.

The App Marketplace hosts these apps and allows merchants to personalise their payments experience across different industries to better meet their own needs, and the needs of their customers.

One sector where we’ve been able to really enhance our market offering – using the Smart Terminal – is in healthcare. Following the acquisition of Whitecoat in 2021, in March this year, we launched CommBank Smart Health. Smart Health is a dedicated app that sits on the Smart Terminal.

All major Australian private health insurers are enabled – providing a near real-time healthcare payments and claiming solution.

Integrating into practice management systems, Smart Health digitally captures patient consent forms removing the need to store paper signatures, and facilitates same-day settlements on gap payments.

To make claims even easier, we’ve built a world-first mobile phone search, book, pay and claim option for Private Health Insurers, currently available via CBHS, with several other insurers close to launch.

This means everything is done through an app on your mobile. All of the transaction information is in app – showing you the treatment you have had, the cost, and any gap – allowing you to claim for your treatment without the need to present a card.

We’re also supporting the digitisation and e-payment capability for large single payer schemes. We are integrated into WorkSafe Victoria already, with other schemes to follow.

For patients, this reimagined offering makes it easier to make digital payments and claims, receive offers and deals and have the ability to track spending.

In addition to our enhanced healthcare offering, we are also looking to improve our service offering within the hospitality sector. We are currently working in collaboration with Doshii – which we acquired at the end of 2020 – to create a new payments offering for hospitality venues.

Partnering with Doshii to create a ‘Smart Hospitality’ app allows us to leverage their market leading capability and expertise in the hospitality space and move at pace in developing features that are seen as essential in acquiring market share in the hospitality industry. 

The Smart Hospitality app will enable venues to offer a better payment experiences including pay at table, split billing by order item and number of people, auto tipping amounts, and surcharging functionality, POS integration and digital receipts by SMS and email.

The Smart Hospitality app, when taken up in conjunction with Doshii’s platform, will provide a differentiator in market to deliver a modern in-venue payment experience – by providing features that delight patrons, and create new value for hospitality venue owners and their staff.

Lastly, our new Smart terminal – and the fact that it is on an Android operating system – gives us the opportunity to work with clients to develop their own apps. We recently partnered with MyVenuePOS to launch a tailored app for Adelaide Oval, just in time for the AFL season.

Among other benefits, this means staff at the grounds can serve fans faster using multiple Smart terminals connected via one app across the 54,000-seat stadium.

For visitors to the Oval, it means a faster payment experience, so less time in queues.

The Smart terminal brings with it a lot of new technology and functionality that can benefit merchants and their customers. So, what are the next steps from here? When can we expect to see these new terminals in operation across all relevant businesses in Australia?

We currently have over 7,000 Smart terminals in market – and this number will increase over the course of the calendar year as they are rolled out to all of our customers.

Over the coming months, we’ll continue to release more devices in our ‘Smart family’ including our integrated device that will be connected to our merchant’s Point of Sale registers, and then onto our Smart Mini release that allows merchants to pair a dongle for payments with their own device.

Secondly, the power of the Smart platform will continue to be in the apps that are developed by us, industry and our merchants to deliver great business and customer experiences. We will have 20 apps in market by the end of the year with an ability to keep adapting to our customers evolving needs into next year.

In parallel, we are building out the next evolution of eCommerce solutions to support our merchants in attracting and converting more customers through flexible and innovative solutions.

Things you should know: The information contained in this CBA story is published solely for informational purposes and provides general market-related information, and is not intended to be an investment research report. It does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Seek financial advice based upon your own circumstances before making any financial decisions. Please view our Merchant Agreement, Financial Services Guide and Operator and User Guides at our Merchant Support Centre.

Whitecoat was acquired by Commonwealth Bank of Australia in May 2021. Additional details are available here: https://www.commbank.com.au/articles/newsroom/2021/05/whitecoat-acquisition.html

App Marketplace available on all Smart terminals with publicly available apps coming soon.© 2021 Commonwealth Bank of Australia ABN 48 123 123 124 AFSL 234945