Banks and mobile payment providers building security protocol

Talks are ongoing between Australia's financial institutions and its mobile banking and payments companies, to establish a new security protocol. The new protocol aims to address the levels of security and privacy requirements for customer-sensitive information for banks and payment companies such as Apple Pay, Android Pay, and Samsung Pay. The proposed agreement would involve Apple, Google, and Samsung signing a voluntary code to maintain certain levels of security, which the regulator would then have the power to enforce.

Banks and payment companies are nutting out a new security protocol for digital wallets in Australia to avoid a repeat of the spike in identity theft when Apple Pay was introduced in the US.

Members of the Australian Payments Clearing Association – which includes banks, credit card companies and payments networks – are worried tech companies, including Google, Apple and Samsung, do not have to adhere to the same security and privacy requirements for customer information as they do.

Apple Pay.

Its 100 members, as well as regulators ASIC, the Reserve Bank, APRA and the ACCC, are due to respond to a private consultation draft of a Third Party Digital Wallet Security Code by the end of January.

"Australian financial institutions are subject to prudential regulation and ongoing supervision in relation to their privacy compliance. Mobile wallet providers are not subject to the same level of ongoing supervision," the consultation paper says