Eftpos goes live with payments infrastructure overhaul

Eftpos mobile payments. Credit: Eftpos

Eftpos has switched on new centralised payments infrastructure that is meant to speed up the rollout of products including Eftpos online and mobile payments.

Suncorp Bank, ING Direct, Strategic Payments Services (SPS) and Bendigo and Adelaide Bankare have connected to the hub, and ANZ will connect by year end, Eftpos said.

Eftpos CEO Bruce Mansfield said he expects all Eftpos members will be connected to the hub by September 2015.

The Eftpos hub will replace a network of bilateral links between financial institutions and merchants that started when Eftpos cards were launched in Australia during the 1980s.

Through the hub, new products including digital online and mobile payments will be able to be updated twice annually though scheduled software releases. The hub will also support Eftpos’s new chip and contactless product.

“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,” Mansfield said in a statement.

“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.”

The Eftpos hub will be “an important component in maintaining a strong Australian card payments industry into the future”, said Michael O’Shea, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank head of access and payment systems.

The hub “marks a significant change in Australian payments”, said Suncorp Bank's executive manager of payment systems and physical channels, Paul Evans. “The new hub will help drive payments innovation and efficiency across the industry for years to come."

In a global payments report released today by Capgemini, Australia was ranked fourth in the world for number of non-cash transactions over the last 12 months.

Adam Bender covers telco and enterprise tech issues for Computerworld and is the author of dystopian sci-fi novels We, The Watched and Divided We Fall. Follow him on Twitter: @WatchAdam

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