How  Pharmacies enhance  security, workflow, and profitability with CommBank’s Smart Health payments solution

For many Australian pharmacies, helping remote customers pay for medications has long been a challenge. Taking credit or debit card details over the phone can be time-consuming and creates concerns over security and convenience for both staff and customers.  

To solve this, leading pharmacies including Scott Street Pharmacy and TerryWhite Chemmart Stafford implemented CommBank’s Smart Health for Pharmacies, an omni-channel payment solution that enables seamless transactions for both in-store and remote purchases. With Smart Health, pharmacists can send payment requests directly from their Point of Sale (POS) system to a patient’s phone, allowing them to pay securely without manual card entry or handling sensitive details over the phone.   

“More than a third¹ of pharmacists have told us that offering digital payments is a critical part of their business growth plans. CommBank has designed Smart Health for Pharmacies to help pharmacy business owners serve more customers digitally and securely – supporting their business growth ambitions. We are also delighted to be able to offer a solution to our customers which addresses the higher levels of risk we typically see with traditional over the phone payment methods,”
- says Albert Naffah, General Manager Payment Acceptance at CommBank.   

Deanna Cubis, Pharmacy Manager at Scott Street Pharmacy, highlights how the solution streamlines both in-store and remote workflows and strengthens customer retention. 

"Smart Health for Pharmacies allows us to take in-store payments via CommBank's Smart Integrated terminal, which integrates directly to our POS system. The remote payment feature lets us take payment for orders in a way that suits our customers. We just create a payment request in our POS and send directly to the customer for payment via their mobile phone. We can also then check the status of any invoices in real time in a portal which is really useful. The biggest benefit of the solution is that it eliminates the need for us to take customer credit card details over the phone and integrates well with our POS."   Sam Turner, Pharmacy Owner at TerryWhite Chemmart Stafford, underscores the importance of security and efficiency for high-traffic environments.

"The solution provides a far safer and more secure payment method for customers who want to pay remotely when compared to MOTO. It was straightforward to implement for my team and the automatic reconciliation into our POS system made life that little bit easier for a high traffic pharmacy like ours."

Smart Health’s auto-reconciliation feature eliminates the need for manual payment tracking, saving significant time for pharmacy teams and helping streamline daily operations—especially in busy or high-volume pharmacy environments. CommBank’s Smart Health for Pharmacies integration with Fred POS Plus, a leading pharmacy point-of-sale software by Fred IT Group, is further expanding the bank’s support of the pharmacy ecosystem.   

“Integrating with Fred POS Plus is another important milestone in the development of this innovative payments solution for the healthcare sector,” said CommBank’s Naffah. “Ensuring that CommBank Smart Health seamlessly integrates with leading pharmacy software systems is about giving pharmacists the ability to offer digital payments that initiate, complete and auto reconcile in their existing point of sale system – no extra steps required.”     

Markus Windhofer, General Manager Growth and Partnerships at Fred IT Group, adds that the CommBank Smart Health for Pharmacies platform allows pharmacies to offer digital payments that align with evolving consumer expectations. “Giving customers the option to pay wherever they are, provides the ‘Uber-like’ payment experience customers are looking for—making it easy to get what they need, conveniently and efficiently. The system delivers a safe and secure remote payment option whilst reducing the risk of fraud. The CommBank Smart Health for Pharmacies integration with Fred POS Plus will enable faster, smarter and safe payment workflows.”   

With support from Scrypt Ventures and Fred IT Group, CommBank is helping pharmacies enhance workflow, improve customer satisfaction, and increase profitability.  As the healthcare industry evolves, digital payment solutions will be crucial for pharmacies to stay competitive and meet customer needs.