RBA exposes the banking industry’s repeated disruptions to retail payments systems

Australian consumers and retailers were the victims of numerous glitches, failures and outages at major banks during the past 12 months.

The RBA Payment Systems Board Annual Report 2010/2011 found that: “In late November 2010, National Australia Bank (NAB) experienced operational difficulties originating in its overnight processing of direct entry payments. Efforts to catch up on processing caused further problems. This was followed by another, unrelated, problem with direct entry payments in April 2011 at NAB. In March, CBA experienced problems with its internet banking site, as well as its POS and ATM services, and in early May an operational difficulty at a data centre caused Westpac’s eftpos, internet banking and ATM services to shut down for a morning.”

What is at stake is the reliability of the retail payment system with $400 billion spent annually.

“In light of these and other incidents, the Reserve Bank and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority are discussing possible approaches to strengthen the handling of any future operational disruptions to retail payments systems,” the RBA says.

In contrast, the only independent provider of EFTPOS merchant services – Tyro Payments – delivered with its technology, multiple switches and data centres 100 per cent system availability to its customers.

Tyro Payments CEO, Jost Stollmann, said EFTPOS outages cause significant turmoil for consumers and businesses alike. An EFTPOS outage results in abandoned sales immediately affecting the retailers’ bottom line. Even a small retailer, loses hundreds of dollars in no time, not to mention the havoc and customer dissatisfaction.

“That is why Tyro has spared no effort to reduce the risks of failure of its EFTPOS platform,” Jost Stollmann said. “It is also why over half of Medicare Australia’s rebates through the EFTPOS system are processed through a Tyro payments terminal.”

Need to know more?

For more about this news story please contact:
Carolyn Prendergast, Head of Corporate Communications on 0409 910 561 or [email protected]
Matthew Johnston, Corporate Communications Manager on 0432 535 893 or [email protected]