Credit card offered by Woolworths

In Australia a new credit card is being introduced by Woolworths in its move to consolidate its position as the nation's leading grocer. The new card will reward customers for shopping with the company.

With the launch of the card, the first major offering of the company's Everyday Money division Woolworths becomes the first Australian retailer to offer a general purpose credit card.

The new card product developed in partnership with Mastercard and HSBC can be used as a "contactless" card for retailers with a reading device. The security is ensured through a personal identification number. With the card average transaction time is expected to reduce by at least 12 seconds.

Earlier this year Woolworths introduced its "payment switch", the back-end payment processing system that processed nearly 114 million credit card payments annually.