Bendigo Bank's Redy mobile wallet pays back users

Community Telco Australia CEO David Joss unveils Redy by Bendigo Bank.

A mobile digital wallet revealed by Bendigo Bank provides incentives to users who make payments by scanning QR codes.

The Redy app is available from today and will initially be supported by merchants in Melbourne, Adelaide, Bendigo, Geelong, South West Queensland, Tasmania and in Victoria’s Yarra ranges. Bendigo Bank plans to add other areas including New South Wales in the coming months.

By paying with Redy, users receive credits called “creds” that they can spend on charities or future Redy purchases. The customer gets 0.5 per cent of each transaction back in creds, with one cred equal to one dollar.

David Joss, the CEO of Bendigo subsidiary Community Telco Australia, said the combination of community-based incentives with a mobile wallet could be a world first and he expects it will help Bendigo’s wallet outshine competitors.

“There’s certainly solutions popping up all over the marketplace,” Joss said at a launch event in Sydney. “None of these other ones in the market represent value enough to drive a change in behaviour for the consumer or the business.”

“You need to have more than just a quick transaction.”

Samsung vice-president Craig Gledhill said Redy’s advantage is its offer of “meaningful” digital payments that engages the community and addresses challenges faced by small businesses. Samsung is a Bendigo Bank partner that participated in Redy trials and has provided its tablets for use as merchant terminals.

The rollout follows a trial in two select Victorian communities that was announced last year.

Participating merchants must pay $25 monthly for a Samsung tablet that is used as the terminal for accepting payments. The merchant must also pay a fee of 1.5 per cent per transaction.

To make a payment, users scan a QR code displayed on the merchant’s Samsung tablet. The user is then asked to accept the payment on their device.

After amassing creds, users can use the app to make a payment to a charity or elect to use the money toward their next transaction. Bendigo Bank has so far signed up 10 charities, Joss said.

Users do not have to be Bendigo Bank customers and they can add a Visa or MasterCard from any issuer.

The wallet supports a variety of smartphones because the app only needs a camera to scan QR codes. Joss said this was the main reason why Bendigo chose QR codes over near-field communications (NFC), which had also been trialled.

However, BlackBerry and Windows Phone users have once again been left out. Joss said the app is only available for Apple and Android devices at the outset because that is “where the customers are.”

However, he said Bendigo Bank might expand to other platforms in the future, and the bank has Windows devices on the roadmap.

Merchants are more limited in terms of device since they must use a Samsung tablet provided by the bank. The tablet can only run Redy and cannot be used for anything else by the merchant. However, Joss said there is the possibility of integrating with third-party point-of-sale systems in the future.

The tablet includes a 3G or 4G mobile connection provided by Optus, a Bendigo Bank partner, Joss said.

Adam Bender covers telco and enterprise tech issues for Computerworld and is the author of dystopian sci-fi novels We, The Watched and Divided We Fall. Follow him on Twitter: @WatchAdam

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