Trio join Eftpos board

Three independent directors will join the board of Eftpos Payments Limited, the special purpose company established to revitalise the quarter century old debit payment network.

Mike McLeod, an insurance industry veteran, will serve as chair. McLeod, currently chair of Integral Energy, served on the board of AMH Health Insurance (recently sold to Medibank Private) and steered medical insurer UMP back into solvency and profitability earlier this decade.

Vicky Papachristos is the only one of three directors with any payments experience, having worked at Westpac, Visa International and as national manager, customer strategy and loyalty at Myer. Papachristos now runs her own consultancy, Currant Marketing.

The third independent director is Bruce Rathie, a former investment banker.

Eftpos Payments is still searching for a chief executive and the board, which comprised bank and retail representatives only until this week, is still considering its strategy.

Banks agreed to set up Eftpos Payments under pressure from the Reserve Bank of Australia. The RBA has for several years urged the industry to invest in Eftpos and to avoid Eftpos following Bankcard into oblivion.

While Eftpos remains ubiquitous as a payment option at the point of sale in the world of conventional retailing, it (or at least the transaction account behind the Eftpos card) is rarely used for online payments.

Banks have so far found no business case to push Eftpos, or a variant, as a payments option for internet payments, leaving that open to credit and charge card brands, PayPal and a handful of less well known innovators.