The greatest risk consumers and merchants face as a result of recent developments in the payments system is a loss of choice, the head of Eftpos Payments said yesterday.Eftpos managing director Bruce Mansfield said innovation in the retail payment market should incorporate choice and multi-functionality. He said he was concerned that recent developments did not meet these objectives.Speaking at the Payment Innovation conference in Sydney yesterday, Mansfield said: "Contactless technology does not give consumers or merchants choice as to where a payment is sent."These payments are processed over BankNet (for MasterCard) or VisaNet."We need to work with industry and the regulator to work this out. Product lockout is the elephant in the room."Eftpos will start issuing chip cards "within the next few months", Mansfield said. And he promised Eftpos would have something different to offer the market when it launched the chip technology. "It will enable multiple applications on a chip," he said.He said Eftpos would also have a mobile application ready early next year, and he was hoping to have an internet service ready next year.Eftpos transaction volumes increased 12.8 per cent in the year to June 2012. The company processed 2.29 billion transactions worth A$134.9 billion.About 30,000 new point-of-sale payment terminals were deployed during the year.