The start of the New Payments Platform, set for the fourth quarter of this year, is already opening up business niches for specialist payments system vendors. One such player is long-time technology entrepreneur Bernie Pack, who has been busy presenting his concept of an "ATO GST Debit Card" to Australia's largest banks. In an interview with Banking Day last week, Pack said: "All the major banks are very keen on this idea as it provides additional revenue sources." "In discussions with the banks, their only concern, really, was capturing the GST at the point-of-sale. With the introduction of the New Payments Platform, that doesn't become a problem any more as a lot more information can be transferred." Even so, Pack insists that his system can work despite the current 140-odd character limit for annotations on bank transactions. He cites as evidence a project with MasterCard that was able to test a card for backpackers and tourists that gave a ten per cent discount at certain traders and distributed a small commission. On the other hand, said Pack, his financial technology applies the existing electronic banking system to "automatically capture Goods and Services Tax [credits and debits], and other taxes, while helping to banish the black economy in Australia". This is a serious claim, with recent media reports quoting Federal Government tax revenue losses of an estimated A$15 billion due to the widespread cash economy. These losses have grown, measured against the Australian Bureau of Statistic's 2013 data that estimated a cash economy of 1.5 per cent of GDP, or about $21 billion. Of that, about $10 billion was reportedly untaxed. Business Transactions Concept's patented Tax Capture technology isolates the tax component of every business transaction that occurs via electronic banking platforms. This includes the soon-to-be-introduced New Payments Platform for faster every day payments. "Banks are pivotal to the success of this scheme and to capturing tax payments," Pack said. "As electronic banking systems withhold, report and reconcile GST collected by business clients, the payment of GST is automated. This reduces the need for businesses to complete quarterly BAS statements. The system, as its name implies, will capture GST at the time of the transaction rather than up to three months later.  The GST component of purchases and sales is debited or credited to a "GST card", meaning that over a quarter most payments will be netted off. That is, for each transaction, the GST component is captured at the point of sale. At the end of the GST period, say at three months, all positive balances are extracted from the ATO's GST cards and deposited to the ATO reserve bank account.  All negative account balances are extracted from the ATO reserve bank account and deposited to the card or bank accounts of the respective GST cardholders. What's in it for the banks? Firstly, there is around 100 billion dollars to be captured and withheld. Secondly the banks will save businesses billions of dollars in compliance fees.  Third, if they only charge a collective average of $5 transaction fee per cent, the banks will