Eftpos company seeks an agenda

Will banks in Australia support their quarter-century-old Eftpos network with more than rhetoric? And invest once more in this most popular of payments services? Maybe and maybe.

The first annual report for the new coordinating company, Eftpos Payments Australia Limited, adopts a positive tone.

Bruce Mansfield, who joined EPAL as chief executive (from Visa) in late 2009 wrote that, having met with all stakeholders, "One message has been absolutely clear."

"All stakeholders see Eftpos as a fundamental part of the Australian payment landscape and the developments necessary for it to remain so are clearly identifiable and actionable."

Mansfield included "more efficient, industry-wide multilateral interchange processing and rules" as one of three items on a list of projects for the year ahead.

Two others were "new product functionality" and "an increasing focus on promoting the benefits of Eftpos."

The functionality aspect is one theme where there is plenty of pressure from the Payments System Board (as regulator) and maybe from consumers, for change. The key challenge is to make Eftpos functional for internet payments, though.

The reference to "multilateral interchange processing and rules" at this stage is only really about rules, with EPAL working to review the bilateral agreements between banks.

More detailed work on strategic options for Eftpos commenced only in recent months.

EPAL omitted financial statements in its annual report but the budget caters so far to six staff and is supplemented by a Commonwealth Bank overdraft of $250,000.