April 12, 2010
Terminal illness
Shop counters will soon be groaning with proprietary terminals if contactless transactions don’t gain traction
BY CHARIS PALMER
Acceptance by transit authorities, improved customer education and more innovation are required to drive greater uptake of contactless payments in Australia say industry insiders speaking at the Cards & Payments Australasia conference.
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Written by: Charis
Filed Under: *Online Banking Review, Payments
Tags: 7-Eleven, ANZ Bank, cash replacement, Commonwealth bank, contactless payments, MasterCard, payments innovation, payments technology, Paypass
Trackback URL: http://www.bankingreview.com.au/2010/04/terminal-illness.html/trackback
JOHN CANDIDO
April 13, 2010 at 10:57 am
The introduction of contactless technology has been achingly slow in Australia. While contactless readers are prominent at Melbourne’s MCG with the NAB supplying them, and Etihad Stadium with the CBA supplying its contactless readers, they have to be vigourously promoted by the banks to members of the public as well as any merchant wanting to take them on board. The ANZ and Westpac banks seem to be the slowest to respond to this important technological and social innovation. I have got a credit card and a debit card from the ANZ but they do not have the right embedded computer chip, that is, they don’t have ‘payWave’ embossed on the front of either card in order for me to use them at any contactless reader. This technology, alongside the internet and mobile phone, has the potential of bringing Australia very close to a future possibility of a cashless society. This still unrealised but inevitable future outcome, has many benificial aspects for society such as crime detection and reduction, the integrity of the income tax base, and general reductions in costs for the financial system. The Banks need to do a lot more to get this up and running.