Michael West had an excellent report in The Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday about the EFTPOS fee issue raised by the recent EPAL announcement. If you are not up to speed with this issue, please read my blog posts here and here.
Jewellers, too, are taking up the issue – see the report in Jeweller Magazine. The report includes this straightforward explanation:
Under the new system, there will be a new 5 cents interchange fee for standard point-of-sale transactions of $15 or more. For transactions below $15, there will be no fee and retailers will get 15 cents for each cash-out transaction they perform.
The new system replaces the old one where retailers and their banks received a rebate of approximately 5 cents per EFTPOS transaction.
Newsagents need to act if they want their voice to be heard about the new EFTPOS fee regime. Not acting could mean that the changes proceed and this would mean that Coles and Woolworths would have another competitive advantage over us. Imagine what a consumer would decide if wanting to purchase more than $15 worth of magazines, stationery or greeting cards. Do the go to the newsagent where there is likely to be a surcharge or do the go to one of the big two where there is no surcharge.
Maybe could design an industry stardard sign which can be displayed by small retailers: “WE PREFER CASH. FASTER QUEUES, NO FEES, FEWER HASSLES.”
Cameron,
That sign would only make small business look old and out of touch. Aside from that, anyone who has used contactless payment will know it is faster than using cash and those with integrated EFTPOS will often find that it is just as fast as cash.
Edy makes shopping in Japan really convenient.
What are the chances you forget both your phone AND your wallet.
Aaron,
In a few years we should see the banks to implement NFC on a large scale. Most of the major phone manufactures have confirmed playing in this area. I believe there a couple of phones that have the technology already (although you essentially cant use it for anything yet) and many manufactures have flagged it as something they plan on implementing or at the very least are investigating as a possibility. If the iPhone 5 is released with NFC later this year we will no doubt see the demand for the supporting infrastructure increase dramatically. Accuracy, security, speed and ease of use will drive NFC as the major card replacement technology over the next 5-10 years.
Unless it’s rolled out right, I can’t really see smartcard technology taking off (in the near future anyway)
The mastercard paypass works great, but I rarely see people use it. Smart cards are in-built to almost every phone in Japan made in the past few years.
QR Codes didn’t seem to take off that well in Australia either, and the failling/failed myki system makes me worry about Australia and smart cards in general.
Aaron,
Both Google and Apple (which together make up the vast majority of the smartphone market) have both signalled NFC as a technology they will be implementing over the next few years. This alone will drive demand.
We have paypass/paywave and are seeing more people use it. The problem at present is that only a select few banks are implementing this technology. As with chips the implementation will take a number of years. The major banks, retailers and EFTPOS hardware providers are all pushing for the technology.
to anyone that thinks cash is free of fees, you are kidding. How many times has your tills been short or the time it takes to count and reconcile tills, safes, prepare banking and then bank it. also its a bit hard for crooks to rob your eftpos funds
Good point scott. It also costs to insure cash on premesis.