Australia mobile payments up; NIST sets digital ID guidelines

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In 2024, Australians made over four billion mobile payments, totaling over $100 billion, with a quarter of the population now saying they use mobile wallets for all payments. However, a new study found that Aussies are still unwilling to relinquish their credit and debit cards.

The study by money.com.au revealed that 73% of Australians still want to keep hold of their physical cards. Attachment to cards is strongest among older generations, with 84% of baby boomers and 75% of Gen X treasuring the assurance of their cards in an increasingly digital world. Only 55% of Gen Z wants to retain theirs.

While loyalty to cards remains strong, nearly half of all card payments were made via mobile wallets.

Australia’s payments system is one of the most advanced globally. Data from Finder.com last month revealed that Aussies hold over 44 million debit cards and 17 million credit cards. In May alone, they made over one billion purchases using debit cards, worth AUD52.4 billion ($34 billion).

While some of the attachments to the cards are sentimental, money.com.au expert Sean Callery says they can be a backup in case digital payments fail.

“It’s partly habit and trust, but also about having a back-up when your phone dies or the tap doesn’t work at checkout,” Callery commented.

Digital payments can fail. For instance, in May, one of the country’s Big Four banks, National Australia Bank (NAB), was hit by a system failure that locked users out of the Internet and mobile banking platforms for several hours. Similar outages also hit Westpac and the Commonwealth Bank in February.

Beyond insurance against system failures, respondents in the study pointed out that cards are easier for use by an entire family, where a parent would prefer to hand a card to a child, rather than a mobile phone.

While most Aussies are holding onto their physical cards, the study found that their popularity is gradually reducing with the rise in mobile payments. At the current rate, all payments in the country will be made via mobile wallets by 2032, the study estimated.

However, according to one money expert, the estimate is unrealistic. Joel Gibson drew parallels with the perceived demise of cash, which, despite the rise in digital payments, still plays an important role in many countries.

“Our goal is a more competitive, efficient and safe payments system for everyone,” Governor Michele Bullock commented.

Beyond cards, the country is pursuing tokenized asset settlement under Project Acacia, which entered a new phase last month and is exploring 24 use cases.

US NIST issues new digital identity guidelines

In the United States, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has issued new guidelines for using digital identity and passkeys in its first update for the sector since 2017.

NIST published SP 800-63 Revision 4 on August 1, describing it as the culmination of a process that started in 2021 and incorporated over 6,000 public comments. The update breaks down the new technical requirements and processes to integrate digital ID, including the security and privacy demands. It doubles down on identity being “a team sport” that must involve experts in privacy, cybersecurity, program integrity, user experience, and more.

The updated guidelines include a revised risk management process, proposals for continuous evaluation metrics, new fraud check requirements, and recommendations for new identity proofing processes.

NIST has also doubled down on its demand for controls addressing forged media at a time when deepfakes have become a global scourge. Recent data shows that there were 20% more deepfake incidents in Q1 this year alone than there were in all of 2024. Deepfakes now account for 7% of all fraud attacks globally, a 2,000% rise in the past three years.

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