Eftpos Australia is building a centralised payments hub which will speed up the rollout of products such as Eftpos contactless for merchants.
The company signed an agreement with payment technology vendor FIS to build the hub which will process six million transactions per day.
According to Eftpos managing director Bruce Mansfield, any system changes or product enhancements will be all done at the same time, rather than requiring participants to make multiple changes.
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“Over the past three decades, Eftpos has been a trusted, secure and accessible payment option for Australian consumers and merchants and we are determined to see that remains the case into the future,” he said in a statement.
“This project will help us to retain local choice and competition in the Australia payments market as we move to new technology platforms such as mobile and online.”
The hub will replace a network of bilateral links between financial institutions and merchants which started when Eftpos cards were launched in Australia during the 1980s.
Mansfield said he expected banks and merchants will start getting connected to the new hub in 2014.
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