Digital Disruption – Page 55 – Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog

Mobile Moves to Majority Share of Google’s Worldwide Ad Revenues

Google, which is set to report Q3 earnings this week, now makes more ad dollars from mobile than from the desktop globally, according to eMarketer’s latest estimates of ad revenues at major publishers. But in its home market of the US, that revenue flip is still in the (very near) future.

The shift in share of Google’s US ad revenues from desktop to mobile was sharp between 2015 and 2016. Last year, eMarketer estimates, just shy of 60% of the search giant’s net US ad revenues came from desktop placements. This year, it will be almost exactly 50/50, with desktop revenues eking out a 0.6-percentage-point edge. But by 2018, more than 60% of Google’s net US ad revenues will be thanks to mobile spending.

Google is already passing this milestone this year on a worldwide basis: About 59.5% of the company’s net global ad revenues will come from mobile internet ads this year, up from about 45.8% in 2015. By 2018, nearly three-quarters of Google’s net ad revenues worldwide will come from mobile internet ad placements.

This year, Google will generate $63.11 billion in net digital ad revenues worldwide, an increase of 19.0% over last year. That represents 32.4% of the worldwide digital ad market, which this year is worth $229.25 billion.

Google continues to be by far the dominant player in worldwide search advertising. eMarketer estimates the company will capture $52.88 billion in search ad revenues in 2016, or 56.9% of the search ad market worldwide.

On the display side, Google is second to Facebook. It will generate $10.23 billion in display ad revenues worldwide this year, or 12.9% of total display spending.

YouTube net ad revenues will grow 30.5% this year to reach $5.58 billion worldwide. In the US, YouTube is the leading over-the-top (OTT) video service, with 180.1 million users this year. That represents 95.7% of OTT video service users in the US. Net ad revenues on the site will reach nearly $3 billion this year in the US, according for almost 10% of Google’s net ad revenues in the country. That share will rise slightly by the end of eMarketer’s forecast period.

“Google’s accelerating ad revenues have been driven by capitalizing on usage and marketing trends like mobile search, YouTube’s popularity and programmatic buying,” said eMarketer senior forecasting analyst Martín Utreras.

“We see data and advertising at the heart of Google’s new product offerings,” said Utreras. “The new devices are not only aimed at diversifying Google’s revenues but also at enriching Google’s advertising targeting capabilities as consumers engage and share information with Pixel, Google Assistant, Daydream View, Chromecast and other Google ecosystem devices. We see this as contributing to both device sales and advertising revenues in the future.”

Aussie robo-advisers are ‘horribly manual’

From InvestorDaily.

A CoreData shadow shop of domestic robo-advisers has concluded that automated advice is at least six to eight months away from “working” for the typical Australian consumer. Speaking at the Calastone Connect Forum in Sydney, CoreData principal Andrew Inwood said Australian robo-advice processes are “pretty prosaic” and have not yet managed to deal effectively with ‘know your client’ rules.

CoreData has spent the past six months conducting a shadow shopping exercise on the Australian robo-advice sector, Mr Inwood said.

“We’ve been communicating with them, asking them questions, going through the process of setting them up, closing the funds down, opening them again, putting in money, changing systems, and changing bank accounts,” he said.

“Once you open your account you’ve got to go through the whole process of identifying yourself as a client, which is horribly manual,” he said.

Clients are often required to fill in a paper form and send it to the robo-advice company in order to prove their identity, Mr Inwood said.

There is only one exception – Acorns Australia – which has managed to circumvent lengthy processes by using the banks’ existing knowledge, similarly to UBank, he said.

“There is still a long way for [Australian robo-advice] to go. It’s not true of the US, and it’s not true of the UK – but it’s certainly true of Australia,” Mr Inwood said.

“We’ve kind of rushed into this space [in Australia]. A lot of people used to be [online financial] calculator businesses and they’ve rushed into this space to try and be the next robo-adviser.

“But it’s not quite working. I would suggest that we’re six to eight months away from actually having it work.”

That is not to say there will be a “big future” for robo-advice in Australia, he said.

“It systemises and robotises the whole front end of the sales process. The bit which is expensive for the banks and implies risk for the banks,” Mr Inwood said.

“The bit where the mis-selling is – the bit where the ASIC inquiries are. The more that [wealth management firms] can do that, the better off they’re going to be. My sense is that this wave is coming but it’s still some way out.”

Kenyan and Australian regulators sign agreement to support fintech innovation

ASIC says the Capital Markets Authority of Kenya (CMA) and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) today signed a Co-operation Agreement which aims to promote innovation in financial services in their respective markets.

The agreement was signed in the margins of the Board meeting of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) held in Hong Kong this week.

The agreement sets up a framework for co-operation between the CMA and ASIC in the expanding space of innovation in financial services. The parties have agreed to share information in their respective markets including on emerging market trends and regulatory issues arising from the growth in innovation.

Paul Muthaura, Chief Executive, CMA, said: ‘We are committed to facilitating innovation in financial services, leveraging Kenya’s positioning in the region as an innovation centre. This however calls for us to assess lessons learned and to compare strategies to balance innovation and regulation with our peer regulators.’

‘The CMA has recently commenced efforts towards the establishment of a Regulatory Sandbox structure that is designed to encourage innovation in the capital markets. This strategy reflects the CMA’s role in facilitating the introduction of new fintech products in the capital markets area.’

‘ASIC has developed an Innovation Hub and we are keen to share best practices in terms of how to address regulatory issues pertaining to innovation in financial services.’

Greg Medcraft, Chairman, ASIC, said: ‘We are excited to be working more closely with CMA. It operates in a jurisdiction that has seen significant fintech innovation growth. Innovation in financial services isn’t confined by national borders. We hope this agreement will help to break down barriers to entry both here and in Kenya.

‘Since ASIC launched its Innovation Hub in 2015, we have seen a surge in requests by fintech start-ups seeking assistance about how to navigate the regulatory requirements.

‘Most recently we have consulted on the establishment of a Regulatory Sandbox that proposes an environment to allow start-ups to test concepts without a licence – we are currently considering the results of that consultation.’

Apple Pay dispute may mean less opportunity to pay with your mobile

From The Conversation.

As people increasingly reach for their phone to pay for goods in Australia, existing players in the contactless payment industry are trying to seek competitive advantage. Four of Australia’s leading banks are trying to secure collective bargaining rights for technology that grants access to Apple Pay.

This service is currently is only available to customers with American Express proprietary cards and ANZ American Express companion cards and ANZ Visa cardholders.

The Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) Payments System Board noted that innovations in mobile wallets can boost consumer choice and convenience. Cardholders may be able to consolidate a range of payment cards into a single app on their mobile device.

Australia is one of the leading countries in the take-up of contactless payment transactions. If Apple is blocking banks from offering this service to their customers, it should be questioned.

Australia ahead when it comes to contactless payments

The way that Australians pay for the goods and services that they consume is rapidly changing. The use of cash as a payment mechanism has continued to decline as consumers shift to electronic payment methods, especially for smaller transactions.

Credit and debit cards are the most frequently used non-cash payments methods. In the financial year 2015-16, Australian cardholders made around 6.9 billion payments, worth $538 billion. That is an increase in value on the previous year of around 7%.
Payments System Board Annual Report
This trend is largely due to the prevalence of contactless technology at the point-of-sale. For example, some Australian banks claim that 74% of all MasterCard in-store transactions are now contactless and that per capita, contactless payments in Australia are amongst the highest in the world. Added to that, the A$100 cap on such transactions is the highest in the world.

The contactless payments industry has made substantial investments in the technologies that underpin convenient and secure payments. In particular this has seen the deployment of Near Field Communications (NFC) technology, used to accept both contactless card payments and mobile wallet payments.

Merchant terminals that accept contactless payments via the NFC technology are now commonplace in Australia. Mobile payment applications such as Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Android Pay have all been recently launched in Australia.

Apple Pay arrived in November 2015, originally only for proprietary American Express cards. In April 2016, it was made available also for ANZ issued American Express companion cards and Visa cards.

In June 2016, Samsung Pay launched its mobile wallet application in Australia, in partnership with American Express and Citibank. Finally, Android Pay launched in July 2016 with ANZ, American Express, Macquarie and a wide range of credit unions and mutual banks, using Cuscal as their service provider.

The Apple dispute

Four banks – the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Westpac, National Australia Bank and Bendigo and Adelaide Bank – have applied to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), to collectively negotiate with Apple Pay in Australia.

In their evidence to the ACCC, the banks accuse Apple of trying to piggyback on their investment in Australia’s contactless payment infrastructure, while remaining “intransigent, closed and controlling”, in dictating terms for access to Apple Pay.

The banks claim that Apple is seeking for itself the exclusive use of Australia’s existing NFC terminal infrastructure, “which has been built and paid for by Australian banks and merchants for the benefit of all Australians”.

This negotiation is worth a lot to the banks, the banks claim Apple has approximately 40% of the smartphone market in Australia.

The banks dismiss Apple’s claim that opening up access to the NFC function would undermine the security of mobile wallets. The banks point to the experience of Apple in China and Japan, where Apple Pay was forced to modify its demands in order to maintain parity with Samsung Pay.

Besides seeking non-exclusive access to the NFC and standardised security for all mobile payment systems, the four banks want price transparency on transaction costs for mobile payments within Australia. This is an ongoing objective for the RBA.

In its recent review of card payments regulation, the RBA set out to ensure that its reforms would promote competition and efficiency in the payments system by improving price signals and thus encouraging efficient payment choices for consumers.

Apple Pay derives most of its income from taking part of the Merchant Service Fee (MSF) that merchants pay to the card issuers. In the USA, where contactless payments have yet to take off, MSF’s are much higher than in Australia. According to media reports, Apple Pay take around 0.15% of the value of every credit card transaction via its mobile wallet in that country.
Apple has locked its devices so only Apple Pay can be used to make contactless payments. Maxim Zmeyev/Reuters
In Australia, the average fee paid by merchants to the financial institution for transactions on MasterCard and Visa cards was 0.72% of the value of the transaction in June 2016. This followed a review of the calculation of the interchange element of the MSF’s in November 2015.

These interchange fees are now 0.50% of the value of the transaction for the credit card schemes and 12 cents per transaction for the debit card schemes. So there is not as much interchange revenue to share in Australia as there is in the USA.

In its deal with Apple Pay, media reports say that ANZ has given up some of its interchange fees to Apple, but the actual amount has not been disclosed.

In a submission to the ACCC, the four banks’ pointed out if Apple Pay were to gain a dominant share of all mobile wallet transactions in Australia, then consumers would not be aware of the costs that are associated with this method of payment. This would conflict with the RBA’s objective of improving signalling to consumers the price of each payment option.

The four banks have received support for their bid to negotiate collectively with Apple from a number of card schemes, merchants, other banks and payment associations. The ACCC is expected to give its decision on their claim in November 2016.

Is Australia is serious about offering consumers as wide a variety of payment options as possible and making consumers aware of the costs of each option? If so, then everyone should be able to use whichever payment method suits them best, no matter which mobile phone or bank they use.

Author: Steve Worthington, Adjunct Professor, Swinburne University of Technology

Mobile banking users to reach 2 billion by 2020

New research from analysts Juniper Research, finds that over 2bn mobile users will have used their devices for banking purposes by the end of 2021, compared to 1.2bn this year globally. Growth in mobile banking is being driven by consumer adoption of banking apps the changing way consumers manage their finances.

The new research, Retail Banking: Digital Transformation & Disruptor Opportunities 2016-2021, found that the number of mobile banking logins are now exceeding that of internet banking logins in many markets. For example, the BBA (British Trade Association for Banking) announced that banking app logins in the UK reached a record 11m per day during 2015, compared to 4.3m internet banking logins during the same period.

Meanwhile, a recent Consumer Survey conducted by Juniper Research found that around 65% of mobile banking customers in the US and the UK uses an app to conduct banking services.Digital Disruption in Banking ~ What Next?

The report found that banks are becoming increasingly concerned that their market position is being undermined by tech-companies and pure-play vendors enabled by technology and regulations to enter the marketplace. For example, in the UK alone 5 new digital banks received licences or launched services so far in 2016, including Starling, Tandem, Atom, N26, and Monzo, with around 20 banks currently in talks with regulators to receive a licence.

Additionally, by 2017, banks in the EU will be compelled to open their APIs. This will result in many innovative new products that analyse (with permission) user data to create more attractive financial services for customers.

“Recent industry shifts highlight why traditional banks must respond rapidly to retain market share by cultivating new revenue channels and enhancing existing base through sustained innovation. However the challenge here for new players is to increase market share and maintain profitability in the long-run”, added research author Nitin Bhas.

The whitepaper, ‘Futureproofing Digital Banking’ is available to download from the Juniper website together with further details of the full research.

Juniper Research is acknowledged as the leading analyst house in the digital commerce and Fintech sector, delivering pioneering research into payments, banking and financial services for more than a decade.

Banks Up The Ante On Access To Mobile Payment Wallets

Here is a joint statement on behalf of Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, National Australia Bank, and Westpac regarding the current ACCC investigation relating to access to mobile payments via third party wallets.

Australians should have the freedom to choose which mobile wallet they use for contactless payments, regardless of what mobile device they use.

This is why a group of Australian financial institutions lodged an application with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) earlier this year, seeking authorisation to enter joint negotiations with providers of third-party mobile wallets.

The four banks – Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, National Australia Bank, and Westpac Bank – have now provided the ACCC with an extensive response to a range of incorrect and potentially misleading submissions made to the ACCC by opposed parties.

In the response, the Applicants make clear:

The application to enter joint negotiations is restricted to negotiations with Apple;

The focus of the negotiation will be over access to the NFC (Near Field Communication) function on iOS devices;

By locking out any independent access to the NFC function on iOS devices, Apple is seeking for itself the exclusive use of Australia’s existing NFC terminal infrastructure for the making of integrated mobile payments using iOS devices. Yet, this infrastructure was built and paid for by Australian banks and merchants for the benefit of all Australians;

Apple’s claim that providing the Applicant’s access to the NFC function would undermine security or customer experience is completely baseless.

Android, Windows and BlackBerry phones all provide access to their NFC in line with global standards of security for contactless payments set out by the card schemes. There is no evidence that Android Pay, Samsung Pay, or any of the mobile payment apps that have been developed for those platforms have affected security;

The concerns raised by the Applicants on competitive access are not unique to Australia, with similar issues raised in a number of jurisdictions across the world; and

The application also focuses on security standards and transparency in fees. Security claims and “benefits” offered to consumers with respect to Apple Pay are exaggerated.

Australia already has a significantly advanced, secure, convenient and world-leading contactless payments environment and the Applicants want to make sure these standards are maintained. Transparency in fees means that Australian consumers who do not want to use Apple Pay should not be burdened with costs that are imposed by Apple solely for its benefit.

“Our application remains focussed on providing Australian consumers with real choice and better outcomes for mobile payments, mobile wallets, and a range of other potentially NFC-powered functions such as public transport, airlines, store loyalty and rewards programs, and many more applications yet to be developed,” payments specialist and spokesperson on behalf of the Applicants, Lance Blockley, said.

“This is about the future of mobile payments in Australia. Will it be ‘Apple’s way or no way’, or a genuine level playing field so all consumers can have the best digital services, no matter what device they own.”

The response also reiterates that the Applicants are not taking this action because they want to delay or prevent Apple Pay from coming to Australia.

The extensive response from the Applicants is available via the ACCC website here. Accompanying the response is a range of additional expert economic commentary and reports.

To date, the Applicants’ submission has received a number of supportive submissions including from a major retailer, fintech companies and card schemes. Coles, Australian Retailers Association (ARA), Australian Payments Clearing Association (APCA), Heritage Bank, Bluechain, Australia Settlements Limited and Tyro support the collective negotiations objective to gain access to the iPhone’s NFC. Also, APCA and MasterCard support ensuring Apple Pay meets minimum security standards – and collective negotiation on pass-through of fees is supported by the ARA, ASL, eftpos and Heritage Bank.

Executive’s short-term outlooks the real killer of Australian innovation

From The Conversation.

Malcolm Turnbull’s Innovation Agenda focused attention on startups and technology-driven innovation, but this is not enough to overcome the broader problems inhibiting innovation in Australia. Businesses may be looking to the government to ease red tape as a means to increase innovation but what’s really blocking innovation is the short-term view of senior executives, our research finds.

We interviewed 12 board Chairs and nine CEOs of top ASX-listed companies, one-on-one in wide-ranging interviews to try and find out what the leaders of large Australian businesses are thinking and doing in the innovation space.

Our interviewees pointed out there is no real interest among senior executives in taking a risk that may pay off in the long-term because of current risk-reward practices that reward short-term outcomes. One CEO said:

“People try and blame shareholders, but it’s not. It’s management saying, ‘am I really going to be here in 10 years’ time when this actually kicks off’?”

And another board chairperson agreed:

“Does great innovation come out of Australasia? Not normally because the risk-reward perspective is skewed towards I must turn up with my number.”

As a result of this short-term thinking, the amount of money allocated to innovation projects is conservative and released through a stage gate process with the need to report on outcomes. We also found there were very few innovation strategies within these companies.

Executives were risk averse even when a company could afford to make significant investment in innovation. For example one CEO said:

“We are deliberately followers in pretty much everything we do whether it is financial structuring or application of technologies and it’s borne of a risk profile that is a consequence of our market position…we might distribute a couple of hundred million dollars, (and have) A$1 million to spend on something that’s risky.”

Who needs to lead innovation?

Executives and academics have argued that innovation often takes place in large, established businesses. Yet, there is evidence that big business mostly fails at innovation.

In Australia, the 2015 NAB report on business innovation showed that only 29% of very large firms (ASX 300) rated themselves as highly innovative. A recent study by the Centre for Workplace Leadership at the University of Melbourne revealed that just 18% of private sector organisations reported high levels of radical innovation.

The people we talked to as part of this study identified various challenges for innovation in Australia. They pointed out that the Australian market is too small and the Australian culture too laid-back, resulting in less motivation to innovate and disrupt.

Others blamed the large and complex system of government regulations, corporate tax levels, inflexible industrial relations, and the toll poppy syndrome.

However there was little evidence of global aspiration or ambition. Nor was there much discussion about companies’ positioning in a global marketplace.

Some CEOs and Chairs agreed that they are too risk averse to engage in radical innovation, but blamed the short-term orientation of the market and shareholders for their failure to innovate big.

As recognised by others, large organisations tend to frame innovation in terms of improving existing business models rather than disrupting them. As one chair described it:

“I don’t think innovation requires [betting] the business. Innovation now is much more about improving, constant change, constant improvement.”

Based on the interviews we conducted, the current outlook for innovation being fostered by Australia’s established companies is bleak, as summarised by this interviewee:

“Talking about business in Australia, I have a lot of concerns, because I don’t think that there’s enough people in the bigger companies in Australia saying, ‘OK, let’s develop a strategy, let’s develop a business plan, let’s engage with the market and tell them what we are doing, in a very open way, and let them take the rise and fall with us, as to if we get there we get there, if we miss it by a little bit, [let’s] explain to them why we missed it. That doesn’t happen.’ ”

A lot has to change for Australian big business to become more innovative. As a start, companies need to introduce long-term incentives for executives, change attitudes to support taking risks and thinking big, and focus on developing innovation strategies.

Authors: Linda Leung, Honorary Associate, University of Technology Sydney; Jochen Schweitzer, Director MBA Entrepreneurship and Senior Lecturer Strategy and Innovation, University of Technology Sydney; Natalia Nikolova, Senior Lecturer in Management, University of Technology Sydney

Data surveillance is all around us, and it’s going to change our behaviour

From The Conversation.

Enabled by exponential technological advancements in data storage, transmission and analysis, the drive to “datify” our lives is creating an ultra-transparent world where we are never free from being under surveillance.

Increasing aspects of our lives are now recorded as digital data that are systematically stored, aggregated, analysed, and sold. Despite the promise of big data to improve our lives, all encompassing data surveillance constitutes a new form of power that poses a risk not only to our privacy, but to our free will.

Data surveillance started out with online behaviour tracking designed to help marketers customise their messages and offerings. Driven by companies aiming to provide personalised product, service and content recommendations, data were utilised to generate value for customers.

But data surveillance has become increasingly invasive and its scope has broadened with the proliferation of the internet-of-things and embedded computing. The former expands surveillance to our homes, cars, and daily activities by harvesting data from smart and mobile devices. The latter extends surveillance and places it inside our bodies where biometric data can be collected.

Two characteristics of data surveillance enable its expansion.

It’s multifaceted

Data are used to track and circumscribe people’s behaviour across space and time dimensions. An example of space-based tracking is geo-marketing. With access to real-time physical location data, marketers can send tailored ads to consumers’ mobile devices to prompt them to visit stores in their vicinity. To maximise their effectiveness, marketers can tailor the content and timing of ads based on consumers’ past and current location behaviours, sometimes without consumers’ consent.

Location data from GPS or street maps can only approximate a person’s location. But with recent technology, marketers can accurately determine whether a consumer has been inside a store or merely passed by it. This way they can check whether serving ads has resulted in a store visit, and refine subsequent ads.

Health applications track and structure people’s time. They allow users to plan daily activities, schedule workouts, and monitor their progress. Some applications enable users to plan their caloric intake over time. Other applications let users track their sleep pattern.

While users can set their initial health goals, many applications rely on the initial information to structure a progress plan that includes recommended rest times, workout load, caloric intake, and sleep. Applications can send users notifications to ensure compliance with the plan: a reminder that a workout is overdue; a warning that a caloric limit is reached; or a positive reinforcement when a goal has been reached. Despite the sensitive nature of these data, it is not uncommon that they are sold to third parties.

It’s opaque and distributed

Our digital traces are collected by multiple governmental and business entities which engage in data exchange through markets whose structure is mostly hidden from people.

Data are typically classified into three categories: first-party, which companies gather directly from their customers through their website, app, or customer-relationship-management system; second-party, which is another company’s first-party data and is acquired directly from it, and; third-party, which is collected, aggregated, and sold by specialised data vendors.

Despite the size of this market, how data are exchanged through it remains unknown to most people (how many of us know who can see our Facebook likes, Google searches, or Uber rides, and what they use these data for?).

Some data surveillance applications go beyond recording to predicting behavioural trends.

Predictive analytics are used in healthcare, public policy, and management to render organisations and people more productive. Growing in popularity, these practices have raised serious ethical concerns around social inequality, social discrimination, and privacy. They have also sparked a debate about what predictive big data can be used for.

It’s nudging us

A more worrying trend is the use of big data to manipulate human behaviour at scale by incentivising “appropriate” activities, and penalising “inappropriate” activities. In recent years, governments in the UK, US, and Australia have been experimenting with attempts to “correct” the behaviour of their citizens through “nudge units”.

With the application of big data, the scope of such efforts can be greatly extended. For instance, based on data acquired (directly or indirectly) from your favourite health app, your insurance company could raise your rates if it determined your lifestyle to be unhealthy. Based on the same data, your bank could classify you as a “high-risk customer” and charge you a higher interest on your loan.

Using data from your smart car, your car insurance company could decrease your premium if it deemed your driving to be safe.

By signalling “appropriate behaviours” companies and governments aim to shape our behaviour. As the scope of data surveillance increases, more of our behaviours will be evaluated and “corrected” and this disciplinary drive will become increasingly inescapable.

With this disciplinary drive becoming routine, there is a danger we will start to accept it as the norm, and pattern our own behaviour to comply with external expectations, to the detriment of our free will.

The “datafication” of our lives is an undeniable trend which is impacting all of us. However, its societal consequences are not predetermined. We need to have an open discussion about its nature and implications, and about the kind of society we want to live in.

Author: Uri Gal, Associate Professor in Business Information Systems, University of Sydney

NAB System Down, Strike 3!

NAB just reported a third system problem in the last week. At Tuesday 11:45am 11 October 2016 NAB spokesperson – on behalf of NAB said:

“NAB is experiencing outages to some of our services.

“This is affecting Internet Banking and the processing of some customer payments.

“Our ATMs are available and customers can use their cards to make purchases in stores.

“We’re doing our best and we’ll work with you through our branches and our contact centre.

“Our teams are working hard to resolve this and we’re sorry for the impact this is causing.

“We’ll continue to provide customers with regular updates.”

NAB Systems Down – Again!

NAB is having systems issues again. As a result, NAB customers cannot use their NAB cards in ATMs or the EFTPOS terminals.

Monday Midday 10 October 2016, Andrew Hagger Chief Customer Officer, Consumer Banking and Wealth – on behalf of NAB:

“We’re currently experiencing an outage, which means NAB customers cannot use their NAB cards in ATMs or the EFTPOS terminals.

“This is also affecting NAB merchant terminals and HICAPS.

“It’s important for customers to know that our branches are open and you can get assistance here.

“We’re working hard to fix this problem and we’re very sorry for the trouble this is causing.

“Our people in our branches will do their best to help you today.

“We will continue to provide customers with regular updates.”