A joint venture between Australian banking companies Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), Westpac and National Australia Bank has released a new mobile payment platform, Beem It.
The new app is designed to allow instant payments for all Australians and small business units.
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In October last year, the three banks announced that they are working on the development of this new payments platform, one of the first initiatives of their joint venture.
Besides enabling payment to anyone, the new app will allow the user to request payment or split a bill.
Compatible on iOS and Android platforms, Beem It is designed to become an industry-wide payment solution.
It is also compatible across devices and can be used by the users of all banks, industry and retail players.
CBA carried out the initial testing of the platform. Initially, the platform will have a sending limit of A$200 per day and a monthly receiving limit of A$10,000.
All transactions made through the platform will be monitored in real-time.
Beem can be used by all bank customers and small businesses owning a global scheme debit card issued by an Australian Authorised Deposit-taking Institution (ADI).
The launch of this new payment platform comes at a time when these three banks along with Bendigo and Adelaide Bank failed to secure Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) approval to operate as a group while negotiating with Apple for Apple Pay platform.
They intended to compel Apple to provide access of iPhone’s Near Field Communications (NFC) antenna which will enable the banks to offer tap-and-go style payments over NFC through their iOS apps.
However, Apple declined to open up its NFC.
