Eftpos network looks to e-commerce

By Keith Newman

The country's dominant eftpos network, owned by four trading banks, wants to get more involved in e-commerce and pioneer the way for secure debit card transactions over the Internet.

Electronic Transaction Services (ETSL) has been asked by its owners, Westpac, National Bank, BNZ and ASB, to try to make life easier for software developers, internet service providers and businesses building on-line payment solutions.

General manager Ken Hennessy said ETSL's central position straddling the payment side of card-processing had made life difficult by limiting access for those developing new approaches to internet commerce.

"Our owners have requested we get out and find out what we can do to assist those who want to develop in the e-commerce area rather than holding up progress. We are the structure so we have to adapt," said Mr Hennessy.

"We're talking to internet providers and local developers and anyone who's involved in this area who might want to provide a product."

Although internet payment services must initially be based on secure processing for credit-card transactions, ETSL's real challenge is to provide secure processing for debit transactions.

While there developments overseas, Mr Hennessy says there is no one model that will work locally, particularly in relation to security.

"We're likely to be one of the first to provide secure debit card processing on the Internet."

There were a number of possibilities for debit on the internet.

"We'll simply have to choose one and get our feet wet because we can't see clearly what is happening overseas. It's a very complex area."

ETSL's on-line, real-time processing system based on US software and Tandem's non-stop processing hardware provides clearance and payment services for 50,000 merchants with 60,000 eftpos terminals representing 90 per cent of the market.