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New central payments hub clicks for eftpos
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PAYMENTS standard eftpos has its new centralised payments hub fully operational, opening up what managing director Bruce Mansfield claimed was a “new era for Australia’s most widely used payments network”.
The incumbent network has come under increasing pressure from new smartphone app start-ups and other fast-moving challengers such as Tyro Payments and eWay. Smartphone Apps like Clipp and Uber are proving disruptive to eftpos’s traditional business.
Even so, eftpos is far and away the most widely used card system in Australia with more than six million eftpos transactions each day at more than 500,000 merchants, using 760,000 eftpos terminals.
Mr Mansfield said Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, ING Direct, Suncorp Bank and Strategic Payments Services (SPS) were already connected to the hub, with ANZ to follow before the end of the year.
Mr Mansfield said the hub would replace a network of complex bilateral links between financial institutions and merchants that had existed since eftpos was first launched in Australia almost 30 years ago. The new infrastructure aimed to bring new eftpos payments products, such as online, contactless and mobile payments, to market significantly faster and more efficiently.
“Just 11 months after we signed a contract with FIS to build the eftpos Hub, we are now live with a number of financial institutions and processing eftpos CHQ and SAV transactions,” Mr Mansfield said. “We expect all of our members to be connected to the hub by September 2015, marking a significant achievement in industry cooperation.
“This new centralised infrastructure will boost payments efficiency and innovation, helping to ensure that eftpos continues to be a local, trusted payments choice for Australians into the future, as we move to new technology platforms such as mobile and online. The hub also has the potential to carry other payments traffic and support industry initiatives.”
ANZ Banking Group general manager for deposits and mortgages, Brad Gravell, said, “We’re looking forward to working with eftpos on their new eftpos Hub solution which will help deliver industry-leading functionality and security with processing eftpos transactions.”
Suncorp Bank’s executive manager for payment systems, Paul Evans, said, “The eftpos Hub marks a significant change in Australian payments and Suncorp Bank is proud to be one of the first participants in the network. The new hub will help drive payments innovation and efficiency across the industry for years to come.”
Head of Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Access and Payment Systems, Michael O’Shea, said, “Bendigo and Adelaide Bank believe the eftpos centralised hub is an important component in maintaining a strong Australian card payments industry into the future.”
SPS managing director Simon Stephenson, said: “SPS is passionate about driving payment innovation. We are delighted, in cooperation with eftpos, Bendigo Adelaide Bank and ING Direct, to have successfully delivered the first Direct Connection to the eftpos Hub and to be a leading partner in this new payment era.”
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