Australian carrier Optus has teamed up with Visa and Heritage Bank to launch an NFC mobile payment service that lets customers load up to A$500 into a prepaid account and then make payments at any Visa contactless POS terminal.

“Cash by Optus works in the same way as a Visa prepaid debit card,” the carrier explains. “All you need is an Optus postpaid mobile account, a compatible Android smartphone, an NFC-enabled SIM — we’ll send you one on request — and the Cash by Optus app.”

“There are already nearly one million Optus postpaid customers with compatible devices who could download this app, get the SIM and make purchases using Cash by Optus,” Ben White, vice president of mobile marketing at Optus, says.

“We’re the first Australian telco to launch a mobile payments app, and because it’s compatible with many of the latest Android devices and can be linked to any Australian bank account, we’ve got a huge opportunity to bring this technology to a lot of people.”

“As technology and communications converge, Cash by Optus is a natural evolution for Optus,” White adds. “This is our first step towards launching future contactless applications in areas like public transport. Australians never leave home without their mobiles, so it makes sense to build this technology into smartphones now.”