Efforts by Australia Post to sell its POLi Payments subsidiary appear to have stalled as a raft of leading domestic banks continue to advise customers not to use the platform.
Banking Day has been told by several industry sources that Australia Post has been in talks with several payments industry providers to offload the business, but has not been able to find a buyer at the right price.
POLi Payments is a controversial platform that allows consumers to make real-time payments using debit cards by creating a direct online connection to their internet banking provider.
The service is controversial because banks such as Commonwealth Bank, Bank of Queensland and Bank Australia urge their customers not to use the Australia Post service, citing security and other concerns.
“The Commonwealth Bank does not have any working agreement with POLi Payments,” CBA tells customers on its website.
“The Bank urges customers making online payments to do so via the Bank's own NetBank site for their security.”
Bank of Queensland also urges customers not to use POLi because it cannot guarantee the security of log-on credentials when debit cardholders link their bank accounts to the service.
“We take your Internet Banking security very seriously and, for this reason, we do not support the use of 3rd party applications such as POLi,” BoQ tells customers on its website.
“While it may seem that you are in complete control of the Internet Banking session whilst using POLi, we cannot guarantee the security of your log on credentials unless you access Internet Banking via the BOQ website.”
The POLi payments service is offered to debit cardholders in Australia and New Zealand, where it has won support as a payments option from large and small merchants.
The Australian merchant base includes Qantas, Emirates and the online stockbroker, Stake.
New Zealand merchants include Bunnings, Air New Zealand, Facebook and money remitters such as WorldRemit and Wise.
Until 2016, POLi was active as a payments provider to overseas online casinos and gambling sites that targeted Australian customers, but the company’s exposure to this sector was swiftly curtailed after a backlash from federal politicians and anti-gambling advocates.
The advent of the New Payments Platform in 2018 and the subsequent launch of real time payments through PayID has upended a strategic point of difference for the POLi business.
Before then, POLi was the leading provider of real time payments for debit card users.