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Replacement credit cards to appear 'instantly' in NAB Pay

The National Australia Bank has opened up its contactless NAB Pay feature to all personal Visa cards, and added the ability to use replacement credit cards within minutes of one being issued by the bank.
Written by Chris Duckett, Contributor

Users of NAB Pay will be able to use replacement credit cards within the bank's app without having to wait for the physical card to arrive, National Australia Bank (NAB) has said.

"This will be particularly useful for customers who are travelling; we know this is often when customers want the confidence, they will always have an easy way to pay," NAB executive general manager of Consumer Lending Angus Gilfillan said. "With this change, NAB customers can have their replacement cards issued, and then it will be instantly available for use through NAB Pay anywhere contactless cards are accepted around the world."

The bank also announced that it has expanded NAB Pay support to all personal Visa credit cards the bank offers. It touted NAB Pay as having been used in 225,000 transactions since its introduction in January this year.

The technology is currently limited to those with a near-field communication (NFC)-enabled Android smartphone that is running KitKat 4.4 and above.

The National Australia Bank lagged in the introduction of allowing contactless payments through smartphones, with competitors such as Westpac and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia offering them since early 2015. Both banks also have cardless ATM withdrawals, a feature NAB still lacks.

CBA offered its own tap-and-go payments system on NFC-enabled Android devices in October 2013.

NAB CEO Andrew Thorburn claimed in a forum in Sydney this week that the bank is a fintech company that is looking to make faster, bigger, better changes, and to do that, it needs to embrace the hunger found within fintech companies.

"I actually think we are a fintech company ourselves. I think we have the mindset of a fintech company, and I actually think we have a lot of the assets of a fintech company," Thorburn said.

"Fintech companies -- the smaller, emerging ones -- they're hungry, they want to make an impact, they find an opportunity, and they go after it. And that's the sort of hunger we need inside our own company.

"They should be respected, but not feared."

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