Bankwest has sold its Halo ‘tap and go’ payment ring to around 15,000 of its 1.1 million customers almost one year after its launch. These customers used the $39 wearable device – an alternative to cash or a contactless card – for 28 per cent of their purchases in 2018, the bank said on Tuesday. Bankwest’s executive general manager, customer solutions and insights, Pieter Vorster, said the speed at which using the Bankwest Halo has become the norm for those customers shows how flexible they are in the manner in which they want to pay for goods and services. “The popularity of the Bankwest Halo, coupled with the 88 per cent increase in logins to our mobile app that we’ve seen over the last three years, clearly shows how Australians are adapting to today’s digital landscape with some of the highest adoption rates in the developed world,” he said. Payments made on the ring accounted for 38 per cent of all debit transactions made by these customers in December. Vorster said there were clear patterns in the customer experience and usage of the Bankwest Halo. “When the ring first arrives in the post it seems, perhaps understandably, the customer is a little wary and will test the waters by buying a few low-value items first. Bit, after a few days, they’re getting used to it and the value of the transactions they make go up and soon it becomes their main method of paying at the till,” he said. Bankwest has been embarking on a digital transformation that executive GM, technology and transformation Andy Weir said last June was ‘absolutely about survival.’ At the time, Weir said he been “absolutely blown away” by the take up of Halo, which won two awards at last year’s RFI Australian Retail Banking Awards. “At a time when the whole world is clamouring towards Apple Pay and paying with [smartphones], we have tried to push ahead of that and show something that is even more convenient and a step closer to biometric payments which believe me, are not going to be very far away,” Weir said at the time. Meanwhile, Bankwest this week joined the growing list of banks in Australia adopting the Apple Pay platform. Follow CIO Australia on Twitter and Like us on Facebookhellip;Twitter: @CIO_Australia,Facebook: CIO Australia, or take part in the CIO conversation onLinkedIn: CIO Australia Follow Byron Connolly on Twitter:@ByronConnolly Related content opinion Website spoofing: risks, threats, and mitigation strategies for CIOs In this article, we take a look at how CIOs can tackle website spoofing attacks and the best ways to prevent them. By Yash Mehta Dec 01, 2023 5 mins CIO Cyberattacks Security brandpost Sponsored by Catchpoint Systems Inc. Gain full visibility across the Internet Stack with IPM (Internet Performance Monitoring) Today’s IT systems have more points of failure than ever before. Internet Performance Monitoring provides visibility over external networks and services to mitigate outages. By Neal Weinberg Dec 01, 2023 3 mins IT Operations brandpost Sponsored by Zscaler How customers can save money during periods of economic uncertainty Now is the time to overcome the challenges of perimeter-based architectures and reduce costs with zero trust. By Zscaler Dec 01, 2023 4 mins Security feature LexisNexis rises to the generative AI challenge With generative AI, the legal information services giant faces its most formidable disruptor yet. That’s why CTO Jeff Reihl is embracing and enhancing the technology swiftly to keep in front of the competition. By Paula Rooney Dec 01, 2023 6 mins Generative AI Digital Transformation Cloud Computing Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe