cessnapaul

This is nothing about access or customer experience, it's all about price.

Next year the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), Australia's version of the Fed, will cap credit card merchant fees at 80bps with a weighted average of 50bps. The US average is around 200bps.

http://www.rba.gov.au/payments-and-infrastructure/review-of-card-payments-regulation/conclusions-paper-may2016/interchange-fees-and-transparency-of-card-payments.html

I've read that Apple is looking to take roughly 15bps per transaction which would 'take' roughly 30% of the merchant fee that the banks get (based on weighted average). I don't think ANY business would give up 30% of their REVENUE. However lets just say they do, can a bank extend a generous rewards scheme AND 55 days interest free for 35bps?.. I know some will say that the banks charge the consumer 20% interest so 35 bps doesn't matter, but the simply most businesses and credit card consumers do actually pay of their card on time and in full, so the 35bps is significant. 

So why have ANZ and Amex chosen to be included? 
1. Amex remains unregulated as merchants choose to accept their card and therefore Amex charges what they like. I'm sure that 15bps of 3% is easy for them to swallow. 
2. ANZ is interesting... Is it a coincidence that the Head of Apple Pay Australia use to be Head of cards at ANZ?.. Was there special pricing given due to this? Combine this with domino theory, get one and the rest will fall?.. Who knows. 
What is known is that ANZ is  the 'smallest' credit card issuer of the big 4 in Australia. This probably means that it's a customer acquisition play more than anything. Apple knew this due to their head being formerly employed by ANZ and used this as leverage. 

I don't think The ACCC, the Banks or Apple are going to budge on this one, there's AU$27B at stake. 

So, either get an Amex card or open an ANZ account (and give ANZ what they wanted after all, a new customer) and start using Apple Pay.