Eftpos queues for answers

Eftpos Payments is asking its members and vendors to explain how they might extend a life of a low cost system that makes lower profits for banks than rival schemes.

In a request for information distributed this week, EPAL is asking anyone interested to pitch part of the response to this solution.

Innovation is one theme of the RFI, albeit a broad one.

Some priorities are immediate, such as internet functionality and mobile payments, while some are nice-to-haves, such as stored value and government payments.

There are two mechanical projects.

One is updating the coding on the card to the new security standard, and cheap computer chip, being rolled out by banks for MasterCard and Visa branded cards.

The second is working out if a central hub of some sort might make sense in a system where the most connected banks, such as Commonwealth, require 14 links to loop payments efficiently.

The unstated fourth request of the industry is to set out where investment in Eftpos, if needed, ranks in the queue for banks.

The long-standing bank habit of wresting as much yield as possible from legacy investments will be one factor respondents will need to address.

So will the relatively apathetic interest of many key managers in a critical business issue.

Eftpos is not the only debit payment project bidding for internal capital in banks. Mambo is also in the mix and offering a different answer to the internet payment defect that EPAL hopes to solve.

The frustrating state of payments in Australia can't be left for long by banks' decision makers.

Eftpos did not rate as one of the 15 imperative projects Westpac listed on Friday, where jettisoning St George systems is the key payments project.

Nor is there much collaboration in banking at present, nor many signs of any effort to tackle this problem.