Armoured car contracts referred to ACCC

Ian Rogers
The Transport Workers Union is encouraging the ACCC to look into breaches by major banks of enforceable undertakings relating to their collective buying of cash carriage services, The Age reported.

Westpac is likely to shift the carriage of cash for St George's branch and ATM network away from Armaguard from March 2011 and make use of suppliers selected by Cash Services Australia, the newspaper reported.

In 2001 Westpac, ANZ and Commonwealth established Cash Services Australia, in conjunction with US-based solutions provider Carreker. National Australia Bank opted to stay outside this arrangement at the time but joined in 2005, following the exit of Carreker from the enterprise.

The ACCC is examining a series of complaints alleging that the CSA buying group has been engaging in anti-competitive behaviour and that it has broken anti-competitive enforceable undertakings given to the ACCC in 2001 and 2005, after NAB joined the consortium, The Age reported.

The union told the newspaper that "CSA is forcing down prices and that results in unsafe practices in the armoured car industry."

CSA exits to "manage cash logistics functions and provide specialised technologies to automate the cash-ordering process", according to the CSA website.