Australian EMV project fails the education test

Commonwealth Bank's general manager of merchant solutions, Dominic White, said CBA has issued two million EMV PayPass MasterCards and would have 5000 of its 200,000 merchant terminals migrated to contactless by early next year.

"The key is education and we haven't done it as well as other markets; it has been very patchy," White told the Smartcards and Innovative Payments Conference in Canberra yesterday.

"A big part of our (CBA's) education now is to tell the merchant just do whatever the terminal tells you.

"Let the customer hold and control the card and just do whatever the terminal tells you."

White said CBA was testing the Ingenico all-in-one terminal that combines a contactless reader in the unit itself, and found that the contactless reader was activating when the card was swiped or dipped.

Another problem was that consumers were taking the Visa brand PayWave too literally and waving their card around in the general direction of the reader when it needs to be held still next to the reader for at least one second.

"Luckily for us, MasterCard have trademarked 'Tap'n'Go' which is much more accurate."

The Australian Payments Clearing Association is distributing coloured "chip-ready" stickers that attach to EMV terminals but had generally taken a very backseat role in relation to the Australian EMV project, said chief executive Chris Hamilton.

"Australia didn't adopt a top down or bottom up approach to EMV migration; it was more 'when it suits you'.

"But we have passed a critical point now," said Hamilton "There will still be a very long tail to this migration, but I don't think there are going to be any major disasters."