Eftpos switch-off looms for hundreds of retailers tomorrow

Paymark, which processes about 75 per cent of the country's electronic transactions, said it would disconnect about 650 eftpos terminals tomorrow, with further disconnections during June and July. Photo / Dean Purcell

Hundreds of retailers will be reduced to cash-only trading tomorrow as Paymark begins the process of disconnecting non-compliant eftpos terminals from its network.

The upgrades to chip-based technology are required to meet new global security standards in time for the Rugby World Cup, and as concerns mount about card fraud in New Zealand.

Paymark, which processes about 75 per cent of the country's electronic transactions, said earlier today it would disconnect about 650 terminals tomorrow, with further disconnections during June and July.

To date more than 4000 terminals are yet to be upgraded to the new technology, the company said.

The company said late this afternoon that it expected to only disconnect about 500 retailers from the network tomorrow, after receiving a flurry of calls from retailers to its helpdesk.

"The last thing we want to do is stop people trading. We have attempted to contact those who have not upgraded many times, including informing them of the exact week in which their terminal will cease to operate. If you continue to use an old terminal you can expect it to stop working very shortly," Paymark chief executive Simon Tong said.

"On the plus side we've had over 110,000 terminals upgrade over the past 18 months which is a phenomenal effort by the retail community. Well over 98 per cent of all transactions are now being carried by compliant terminals," he said.

- NZ HERALD ONLINE