tyro

Australia's largest retailer is playing the part of David taking on a true Goliath in the global financial world -- payments
multinational Visa. In a move led by finance director Tom Pockett and group head of financial services, Dhun Karai, Woolworths launched a broadside against Visa in April, refusing to allow debit card payments to be processed as credit transactions and routing all scheme debit transactions through the Eftpos network rather than Visa or MasterCard.

The infant Eftpos Payments scheme (EPAL) will mandate a shift to chip-based cards, and the replacement of the ubiquitous magnetic stripe technology, between 2011 and 2014. Making Eftpos cards useable in contactless payments (with no need to swipe or insert the card into a payments terminal) is the initial rationale for the switch to chip.

The cost of payment fraud increased 13 per cent last year, rising from 8.27 cents per $1000 transacted in the year to December 2008 to 9.38 cents in 2009.

At its meeting on 21 May 2010, the Payments System Board decided to undertake a strategic review of innovation in the Australian payments system. The purpose of this project is to identify areas in which innovation in the Australian payments system may be improved through more effective co-operation among stakeholders and regulators.

Woolworths will no longer process MasterCard and Visa Debit payments at its stores, in a move to cut costs, increase revenue and encourage shoppers to use cheaper payment systems. Most individuals will not be greatly inconvenienced by the move; customers of all but one bank (Commsec) will still be able to use the same debit card as before to access funds from their bank account.

Medicare spent 48 million spruiking the benefits of electronic claiming in doctors' offices in a two-month advertising blitz. The media campaign promoted the use of Easyclaim, Medicare Online and Eclipse in a bid to reduce attendance at Medicare offices for cash rebates.
Tyro processed 294,000 Easyclaim transactions during September, up from only 8,000 last April, when it began providing the service. 

The federal government has spent $48 million propping up the troubled Medicare Easyclaim system, intended to allow patients to lodge claims for a rebate direct from the doctor's office. Medicare claimed that savings in the order of $246m had been achieved since the start of Easyclaim in late 2007, and through Medicare Online. 

HCN has announced that it now has over 1,000 practices actively using the Medicare Easyclaim functionality in its PracSoft practice management solution. Easyclaim transactions can be completed in around 20 seconds, significantly faster than the two minutes typically required to complete a transaction using Easyclaim via a stand-alone EFTPOS terminal.

The Reserve Bank of Australia’s assistant governor, Malcolm Edey, has said that the RBA is a ‘reluctant regulator’ of credit cards; and despite a reduction in interchange fees, they still remain too high.

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority has eased the tier one capital requirements for Tyro. "We are treated by APRA now like any other deposit taking institution."

The outlook for new electronic transaction services company, Tyro, is positive. Major shareholder and CEO Jost Stollmann said that the company aims to break even soon. He said that it will probably have an initial public offering eventually. Several experienced financial services figures have invested in the company and joined its board.

Hackers checked into hotel networks more than any other in 2009, and all organizations hit by attacks didn't discover breaches for an average of 156 days, according to a new report based on real-world attacks worldwide. And not surprisingly, a whopping 98 percent of targeted data was payment card information.

Around the world pressure is building for some confrontation with Visa and MasterCard to redress the growing exploitation of their market power against retailers and card users – globally the unfair take is running at some $30 billion+ annually. 

Driven by data breaches and PCI DSS costs, the price of data security will continue to rise. Merchants bear 10 times the cost of fraudulent transactions than is borne by the banks.